Make it three
by chilibreath
Summary: Dr. Allison Cameron returns to PPTH a year after House got shot with someone to introduce to him. Rated M for language and suggestive stuff.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: The following was written for the Livejournalhcchallenge. I was inspired to write this after reading other fanfics with the same---premise.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own House---but I would love to. (joke!)**

* * *

**Make it three**

Dr. Allison Cameron has a new man in her life.

That was the cryptic message Wilson gave his friend, the latest news House has of his former duckling. Actually, it was the only piece of news he's had of his former duckling since she packed up and left PPTH--and him--over a year ago.

More than that, Allison---Dr. Cameron---was coming back to PPTH with her brand new boytoy in tow.

"How'd you ferret out the information? The old boy oncologists' network in league with the immunologists' grapevine?" House snarked.

Wilson shrugged. "We've kept touch with each other since she relocated in New York. Wonderful thing, the internet."

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I always prefer a more personal touch---like the telegraph," House said sarcastically. On the outside, he didn't seem to care; Wilson thought otherwise when he saw the knuckles of the hand grasping the giant tennis ball whiten. How much to tell him...

"When is she gracing the hospital with her presence?" House asked suddenly.

"Tomorrow afternoon, a little after lunch," Wilson replied, turning to leave. House sat down on his chair, releasing the breath he didn't know he held through his nose and the death grip on the ball before turning to his computer. He was about to return to his game of Sudoku when...

"Did I forget to mention that Christopher's coming too?"

* * *

Dr. Lisa Cuddy was pleasantly surprised when Dr. House checked in earlier than usual, which translates into 20 minutes before 8:00 AM. She was about to point this out to him when he suddenly barked, "I'll be leaving after lunch."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? Are your parents flying in for a visit again?"

"Nope." House replied, jabbing the up button of the elevator with his cane. "Gonna set a new world record: fastest half-day on the job, coupled with breaking the land record for hobbling on a cane."

"Like that's ever going to happen," Cuddy snorted. "Since you're already here---Clinic. NOW!"

The last word was emphasized with a slap of folders on House's chest, causing the owner to wince.

* * *

House had planned to leave the hospital early. He didn't want to be here when Allison---Cameron---shows up with her new beau.

He felt betrayed, though he knew that no one knew, not even Jimmy Boy, about the week after he was discharged...she left the week after he returned to the job.

"I can't give you what you need," he told her. "You need someone whole---and I'm not that..."

Almost a year after he pushed her away, it seemed that she had followed his advice and was now coming back to show him what she'd found.

Shit.

If he knows Allison---Cameron---he's willing to bet that this Christopher was another loser who managed to lure Allison---Cameron---into making her think he needs her. One can only hope...

* * *

Just his luck, House wasn't able to make his escape. The moment he left clinic room number 2, Cuddy was waiting for him on the other side with a case for him to handle.

"Twenty-three year old female, suffering massive abdominal pain. Blood work's been done already, along with a battery of other tests at Princeton General. All tests show nothing's wrong, but she's still in pain, so they sent her to you."

House made a bizarre look of disgust before taking the folder from Cuddy.

"Why can't you wait for another 24 hours before giving me an interesting case to work on, for once?" he muttered as he was heading for the elevators. He spotted Chase at a distance, also making a way to the elevators. "Yo, Kangaroo Jack! Hop your British ass over here---we got a case!" he yelled.

* * *

They got through the differential fairly quickly. The patient, Anne, didn't have any of the garden-variety illnesses that would've caused her gut-wrenching pain below the waist, so House sent Foreman to do an MRI and Chase was given the task of getting a detailed history from the patient and her family.

"Give her some Demerol for the pain while you're at it," he called out to Chase.

"Demerol?" Chase echoed.

"So I said, mate," House shot back with a mocking Aussie accent, causing the younger doctor to cringe. "I'd prescribe Vicodin, but I need it. Tell them I don't want the patient to suffer too much. I'm being generous today."

Chase just paused long enough to show House how he rolled his eyes at that before leaving to do his bidding. House turned around to view the whiteboard again, looking over at the list of symptoms as his mind started ticking off some possible illnesses that would've caused inexplicable abdominal pain.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't notice the glass door to the conference room had swung open and shut behind him.

"Hello, Greg."

House stiffened, refusing to turn around and acknowledge her.

He felt the vibration of footsteps grow stronger as Allison---Cameron---came closer to him. As she got closer, he heard a soft sucking sound.

_**...the hell!**_

He turned to his right, and the first thing he saw was not the face that haunted him for many a lonely night, but a pair of round, shocking blue eyes set in a cherubic face, partially covered by a red plastic donut that was presently jammed in a pink mouth and gummed on; hence the sucking sounds.

He drowned into those blue eyes, which looked as familiar to him as though he was looking in the mirror, before raising his head to the woman who was holding the baby in her arms.

"Christopher," Allison cooed, "this is your Daddy."


	2. Under Reminisce

_**What was the week that happened after House came home from the hospital? (first part of two flashbacks)**_

**_Author's Note: I have been asked by some people to continue the story arc I've started with Make It Three. I was thinking of accommodating them—and guess what?—I _****_did_****_. I also have no idea if a teaching hospital can blow the FDA ban on ketamine coma to hell just by a hospital administrator's sheer force of will. Written for the _****_hcchallenge_****_--and some fanfic watchers._**

**_Disclaimer: I still can't seem to own House...sigh  
_**  
For those who want to see more of "Christopher"--- ;-)

**Under – Reminisce  
**  
It happened after approximately eight days since House was discharged from the hospital. He spent a good portion of two months recuperating from getting shot to the gut and the neck.

She remembered that time—

* * *

The surgeon who removed the bullets—Dr. Winston—muttered that for an "antisocial shithead, he was damned lucky those bullets missed some important arteries and major organs." He immediately shut up and handed over the extracted bullets to a glowering Dr. Cameron, who wished that she could transfer them into Winston herself. 

As House had requested, Cameron went to Cuddy and got the green light to give him the ketamine—despite the fact that it hasn't been legalized in the United States, Dr. Lisa Cuddy managed to pull some strings and a bit of legal hocus pocus (with the help of the new hospital legal adviser, Andrews) to have it done. Later, Cuddy would share with Cameron, Foreman, and Chase that she had done some research on the sly and was looking for an opportunity to share it with House before he got shot. The three diagnosticians were surprised at this show of concern; usually, Cuddy and House were verbally at each other's throats. When Cameron asked, Cuddy surprised her by blushing, muttering something about a favor, and walking away.

* * *

He was under a ketamine-induced coma for 7 days—the anesthesiologist upped the dose of Propothol when it was found that House was trying to wake up on the second day. During that strained time, Dr. Allison Cameron would be found sitting next to him whenever her schedule allowed. Even Foreman and Chase came around to sit with House sometimes, but without the dedication that Cameron had. 

It was not lost on Dr. Cuddy why Cameron asked for overtime, but she had to put her foot down when the immunologist even requested a weekend shift as well.

"A burned-out doctor is of no use to this hospital, Dr. Cameron," the older woman said firmly, but in a soft tone. She didn't want Cameron to realize that she knew that these requests weren't for the benefit of helping the rest of mankind—just the one lying in a coma in the ICU.

* * *

The only time Cameron stayed away from House was the night Stacy made a clandestine visit to his bedside. She stayed out of sight of the older woman, seething to the depths of her soul as the woman who had physically and emotionally hurt House brushed her fingertips softly down his right cheek and over his lips. Cameron's anger subsided a little as she saw Stacy's shoulders shake a bit before turning around and leaving the room. 

Cameron was sure Mark Warner didn't know Stacy was here that night. The constitutional lawyer never came back after that one night.

* * *

On the sixth eve of House's coma, Cameron called his parents. They've stayed in House's flat the day before House went under, visiting his bedside everyday since. Wilson personally drove them to the hospital on the morning of their son's scheduled awakening. A pale, tight-lipped John House had his arm around Blythe's slumped shoulders as they followed Wilson through the doors of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. The oncologist felt bad for them; the last time they looked like this was the day they visited their son after the debridement. 

Wilson wasn't surprised to see Cameron standing outside the door of the ICU. She looked tired, then she suddenly became alert when she saw the older couple walking behind Wilson.

"Mr. and Mrs. House," Cameron said, walking over to shake hands with them. "You're just in time. The anesthesiologist will be coming around in a few minutes to wake him up."

John nodded. Blythe's expression didn't change when she asked, "Do you think—will he—will he stop being in pain when he—wakes up?"

Cameron froze a bit at that—even up to now, she still has moments when she couldn't tell patients—or their loved ones—what they needed to hear. Fortunately, Wilson decided to play Dr. Exposition at this point.

"It's hard to say at this point," he began in a gentle voice reserved for giving patients the worst of news. "Your son just happened to have chosen a very risky treatment option; technically, putting someone in a coma longer than two days is a scenario every hospital wants to avoid. Those who've undergone this treatment have—so far—come out of this treatment almost pain-free. But there are still some risks—and I want you to prepare for any outcome.

"You must also realize that this isn't going to cure the chronic pain your son had from the operation on his leg," Wilson continued. "The pain will return, eventually—hopefully, not as much as before. If--when--that happens, well, we'll see what other options can be had for him---if he's keen on it."

Blythe's eyes widened at that, and she squeezed her husband's arm in reaction to that piece of information as she turned to Cameron for verification. Cameron could only nod, disconcerted for a bit at staring into eyes of a familiar shade of blue.

A pager sounded off; Cameron looked at the message that came through for several seconds before hooking it back on her belt.

"The anesthesiologist, Dr. Kiefer, is on his way now," Cameron informed House's parents. "I'll be going along now; you're probably the first people he'd want to see…"

"I'd feel much better," Blythe cut in, smiling a little at Cameron before continuing, "if you'd stand by us as well when Greg wakes up. You too, Jim."

Cameron was stunned.

"I'd be honored."

* * *

It wasn't the Hallmark Channel miracle awakening everyone was hoping for—and most of the people who were expecting such were seasoned doctors. 

House woke up disoriented—a side effect of the ketamine coma. He was unable to recognize the people around him, including his parents. Blythe sobbed briefly at that, surprising Cameron as the older woman turned to her in order to weep on her shoulder. The younger woman awkwardly patted Blythe on the back, explaining that it was only temporary (hopefully) and that Greg would start remembering after a short while. This information comforts Blythe somewhat, until Dr. Kiefer spoiled the moment by saying that her son could also have hallucinations and violent outbursts as he recovers from the coma. He attempts to salvage the situation—he became unnerved at John House's eye-popping stare of outrage, not unlike his son's when the latter is incensed at something—by saying that every patient's reaction upon awakening from the coma is unique.

In the case of Gregory House, his violent outbursts were triggered by the hallucinations. As the nurses assisted Dr. Kiefer in trying to calm him down, Wilson and Cameron ushered his parents outside the ICU, Blythe's sobs and John's continuous mantra of "Good God" blending in with the screams of their disturbed son.

* * *

After assuring Mr. and Mrs. House and a skeptical Wilson that she would do it, Cameron returned to the ICU later that night to watch over her boss. He was asleep when she got in; someone decided to remove his beard, and Cameron almost didn't recognize him with a freshly shaved face. 

Curious, she walked over to him, placing her bag on the chair next to the bed on the way, and used the back of her two fingers to delicately trace a path from his cheek to his chin, marveling at the newly revealed face hidden under the usual two-day old beard he usually sported. She hoped he didn't wake up from her ministrations, and was relieved when he didn't.

She remembered Stacy's visit, and decided to test fate, using the tips of the same two fingers to gently caress his lower lip and enjoying the butterflies-fluttering-in-her belly sensation for once. Just as she was tracing her fingers across his chin, a large hand grabbed her wrist, and she nearly died from shock when his eyes suddenly opened.

House stared at the ceiling first, before turning his eyes onto Cameron. His thumb rubbed the underside of her wrist, feeling the pulse race there.

Cameron was shocked at first, then the shock turned into surprise when she realized upon closer inspection that House was still not himself. Yet she couldn't help but notice how—"open" the expression on his face was. For once, it was vulnerable and held an expression that bade the return of the butterflies floating in her stomach. The fluttering turned into frenzy when House said the following before dropping back to sleep:

"Don't leave me."

_Note: I did some research for the ketamin coma treatments. You can find the links over at my LJ account._


	3. Over It happened that night

Many thanks to my fanfic betas, n0mdeplum (for the romance stuff) and khaldane (for the medical facts).

* * *

**Over – The week that was**

Dr. Gregory House could not believe it—yet the proof was presently staring in his face (literally) and gumming on a plastic donut, with round, blue, blue eyes—_his_ eyes, Blythe House's eyes. Judging from his size, lack of teeth, and the possible timing, Christopher (_Christopher?_) would be—what?—about four months old, give or take a couple of weeks.

Oh boy…

He didn't remember the days following his awakening from the coma. The most House remembered was a feeling of disorientation, a bit of numbness and recurring pain from the gunshot wounds—and no pain in his bad leg.

Granted, he still needed his cane to support himself—big chunk of thigh muscle missing from his leg, _duh_—but other than the irritating pain in his abdomen and not being able to turn his head as usual without ripping his stitches out, he felt super.

Unfortunately, he went from super to rotten within days of waking from his coma when he developed pneumonia. What should've been a three-week hospital stay turned into two months as he recuperated from pneumonia and had his physio at the hospital.

And always, he sensed she was nearby…

* * *

He felt like shit.

Less than 12 hours after Wilson dropped him off, House felt like shit—and if he wasn't feeling so crappy, he'd have hurled his cane at his one and only friend for taking away the keys to his bike and his Corvette. What the hell kind of friend is that James Wilson, anyway?

He managed to convince his mother, however, that it was ok to leave him alone. She fussed at that, and wished that they could've scheduled a later flight back to Ohio. Unfortunately, some lousy streak of luck seemed to have hit her side of the family—first he, Gregory House, got shot, then yesterday, they got news that her brother, George (the funny uncle Greg once mentioned to Foreman) had a nasty accident with the lawnmower.

"Mom, I'm gonna be fine," Greg assured his mother as she fussed at his bedside for the 45th time since Wilson and John House "assisted" him to his room. "I'm a doctor, and I know the number to 9-1-1, just in case."

Blythe snorted, then sniffed—she was torn between staying with her son until he fully recuperated and flying out with her husband to see her only brother. She lightly tweaked his nose instead at the little crack and sighed before making her decision.

"Very well—but I'm calling that nice doctor who works for you. I'll ask her to keep an eye on you—good thing she's worked with you long enough to handle you!"

* * *

Cameron came over to his place the following day. He let her in because he still felt like crap, she'd tell on his mother if he slammed the door on her face, Wilson gave her the key to his place (including the ones for his bike and his 'vette), and she brought food. After sampling the spaghetti and meatballs she cooked up, he decided that having this particular duckling at his beck and call wouldn't hurt after all.

* * *

The thunderstorm on the seventh day of Cameron's visit—that's when it happened.

She couldn't start her car—something was wrong with the battery. After carefully hobbling over to check it out (thankfully, it was parked on the curb nearest to the door of his flat), he successfully diagnosed the problem.

"Your battery's dead," he said.

"What!" she cried.

As though the clouds were waiting for just that word, the downpour began.

"Dammit!" Cameron yelled, almost inaudible in the sudden deluge as she yanked at her hair in frustration. "I'm gonna be late and I can't drive this thing and now I'm wet!"

"Get inside, or you'll be even more wet!" House yelled back as he hobbled back to the flat before he got the bandages to his abdomen wet—he now needed to change the one on his neck. He didn't wait to see if Cameron followed him back inside, just left the door wide open as he used the tip of his cane to drag a rug to the other side of the doorway. He immediately heard Cameron's sloshy footsteps behind him, muttering to herself out of cold, misery, and possibly guilt at the fact that she's going to miss work today. Silly Cameron—if he was in her shoes, he'd be glad for an excuse to miss work! Of course, he's on sick leave for the shooting and all that.

"Come on—there's some spare clothes in my room," he said. "I'm going to change the bandage on my neck—thanks for the shower."

He sauntered off, not waiting for Cameron to follow him. It was only when he took off his shirt, without thinking, on the way to his closet—and the gasp that followed—did the words and actions finally sink in.

He just invited Cameron into his bedroom—and he took off his shirt in front of her like a Chippendale stripper.

House turned around and looked at her. She was wet, her brown hair limp and damp around her shoulders, her clothes clinging to her lithe frame, leaving little to his overactive imagination, her feet bare and pale (she had probably removed her shoes at the door before coming in). He took all this in one long, searching gaze before snapping his eyes onto her face—a bit slack-jawed from what looked like awe.

Great—Dr. Gregory House, momentarily half-dressed and feeling 100 **un**dressed in front of his beautiful underling.

He looked down on himself, grimacing slightly as the injury on his neck made itself known to him again and seeing the large white patch on his abdomen that covered his wound. He must've made a sound of discomfort; something snapped Cameron out of her shock as she remembered…

"House, your neck…" she murmured, rushing forward to him. In her haste to get to him, a wet foot made her slip forward and trip into his general direction. House reached his arms out to her, and in reflex, he held her close, one side of her face plastered on the center of his bare chest. In reflex, Cameron wrapped her arms around his torso, completing the embrace.

Time stood still—the only sounds they heard was the thunderstorm outside, the ticking of a vintage alarm clock somewhere, and their breathing and—in Cameron's position—his racing heartbeat.

House wanted to attribute it to a long-term effect of the ketamine coma. Other than that, what the hell--?

* * *

Somehow, they disentangled themselves from the other; Cameron covered up the awkward Kodak moment by checking his bandage and re-applying the dressing on his neck wound. She fussed a bit over him; she'd been afraid the trip into his arms had also compromised the dressing on his abdominal wound. Thankfully, it was dry and held his "guts into place; be glad you don't have to clean that up," he said cheekily.

He wasn't so cheeky during her personal—_doctorly_, he reminded himself then—quickie check-up on his person.

During her ministrations, House became aware of her—her touch, those long, slender white hands probing his neck and his side, her breath on his skin when she got close enough—_her_.

Once she was done, the awkwardness returned—for one, both of them were still wearing wet clothing; Cameron was still fully clothed and partially drenched from the sudden shower, and House's pants were shrinking a bit around the family jewels. Not good.

"Well—uh—clothes!" he said suddenly, standing up carefully from the bed and making his way to his closet. "Don't want to know how much I'd get in trouble from either Cuddy or my mother for making you stand around, drying wet clothes while you're still wearing them!"

Cameron grinned at that. "Yeah—can't have that. I'll make a call later to get my car towed to a garage and then make a call to the hospital—gonna ask Chase for a lift."

* * *

What actually happened later was, Cameron stayed in.

House wouldn't let her take his Corvette to work when it was found that there wasn't any available tow truck for at least eight hours. Then she found out that Chase and Foreman were working to save the life of their latest patient and had to be monitored closely—she and House gave their side of the differential via phone to Chase and Foreman back in PPTH—

"…and Wilson's in the cancer ward with four cancer patients, one of them critical." Cameron muttered, placing the cordless phone back on its cradle and twisting the Rolling Stones vintage shirt House lent her, unconsciously giving him some sneak previews of her thighs.

Cinch a belt on Cameron's tiny waist, the t-shirt would've passed as a weird-looking dress, almost reaching her knees—from the eighties—but damn, he liked the view! House even liked knowing that she doesn't have any underthings as well.

Damn, its going to be a long day. House knew what might happen—he's already getting into the mood, and had to be devious in his postures so that she wouldn't notice what her new outfit was "inspiring" in him—yet, in her moment of upset, not once did he suggest to her to call a cab—

* * *

Blame the heavens.

Cameron stayed overnight. The rains wouldn't let up, and he still held back the information from her to call a cab.

She refused to sleep in his bed—not with him, of course, for his peace of mind and for her sake—and took the couch. Her clothes were laundered and folded in a nearby chair—House was tempted to unfold them and appease his curiosity: is she wearing her underwear now?

He shrugged and decided to call it a night. He'll try to find out in the morning.

* * *

"_Who'd want to shoot you?" the low, raspy voice whispered. There was a click and then—BANG!_

_There was a yell, a scrambling sound, and a scream_.

"House? HOUSE!"

Someone was shaking him. _No—he's come back to finish the job!_

Not in this dream…"No!"

_He reached out and grabbed someone by the shoulders, tossing the person on the other side of the bed. He grabbed the other person's hands and raised them up over their head, not minding their yelling, his sense of self-preservation managing to control the struggles of the perp as he positioned himself on top, locking the bastard in between his legs and keeping the hands above their head…_

"House! Let me go!" Cameron screamed. "You're dreaming, House! Stop---STOP!"

House woke up, the fog of the nightmare finally clearing out of his mind. Dazed, he looked down, really looked, and realized that it wasn't the shooter he had tackled and locked in a compromising position, but Allison Cameron.

"Jesus," he gasped, letting go of her and, still dazed from the sudden awakening and what violence he could've done her, grabbed her in an embrace. "Shit—Cameron, I'm—I'm…"

"It's—it's ok," Cameron managed to say, her voice muffled as once again, her face was plastered into his broad chest—his bare chest—hesitating a bit before raising her arms and holding him to her in turn. "It was just a nightmare, House—just a nightmare."

His heart hammered hard and fast in his chest, and he knew she could feel it. Minutes passed, and the feeling of shock was replaced by something else—something electrifying.

He felt it in their present position—he felt it as her soft hands gently caressed his bare back—it was on his chest as her face was pressed into it—and it was making him lean down, tilt her face to his, and kiss her.

It was the culmination of their mutual attraction—after two years of flirting, suggestive bantering, holding back due to their positions at work and certain circumstances, some wet dreams and one vivid hallucination (House)—they did it.

House remembered that there was a sense of urgency and a need to make it last all night; both of which were true for him, and to an extent, for her.

It happened that night—only that night.

* * *

It had been a year and several months since he and Cameron had that one night. The problem was, he didn't want it to go any further. After Stacy—hell no! Allison Cameron was no Stacy, and he was afraid to lose her because of himself, just as he had lost Stacy. In Cameron's case, he almost hurt her, and he'd rather cut off his good leg rather than repeat that again.

He suspected it was either that, the hush-hush phone call she received the following day, his declaration of not being enough for her or the fact that he started zoning off on his secret stash of morphine two days later. Whichever the reason, three weeks to the day they did the deed, she sent in her resignation to Cuddy and moved to New York at some obscure hospital in Brooklyn.

Now she's come back to him.

Why?


	4. Hello, little boy

**Hello, little boy**

**xx**

Dr. James Wilson only found out about Cameron's pregnancy about two weeks before she gave birth.

It was kind of ironic---Wilson's old college buddy had asked him to stand as godfather to one of his twin daughters, even though Wilson wasn't Catholic. That same college buddy mentioned that he knew of someone who used to work at PPTH.

"I invited her as well--Mona became chummy with her on her first day here at the hospital," Matt had said. "I just recalled after Mona told me over dinner last night, you know, about where she used to work at until you called me up."

Wilson's spidey senses were tingling--or rather the small hairs on the back of his neck were tingling--when he recalled something. "Is she working with Mona over at the Immunology Department as well?" he asked, crossing his fingers.

"Whoa, how'd you guess?" Matt yelled, causing Wilson to wince. "Yeah, Dr. Cameron joined us several months ago..."

---

Wilson never told House. His friend went on a downward spiral three months after he woke up from his coma.

As he'd mentioned to John and Blythe House, the pain returned. It was hard to tell if it was as bad as it was before he got shot, less, or more; House's reaction to this development was to immerse himself in innumerable bottles of scotch, Vicodin, and traumatizing the applicants for the vacant position in the Department of Diagnostics.

The little bombshell Wilson received from Matt was something he was going to keep mum on until he meets Cameron personally in New York.

---

Wilson almost didn't recognize Cameron, who was standing next to Mona, holding one of the screaming twins.

He'd never thought he'd see the day Allison Cameron would be so--round. Last time he saw her, she was a slim, lithe woman, hardly an ounce of fat on her--always on the move. THIS Allison Cameron was a little plumper in the limbs, her cheeks were rounder and rosy like apples--actually, with the exception of the enormous belly, Cameron looked like all she gained were 10 pounds.

As he thought of a way to re-introduce himself to Cameron, a large hand whacked him on the back, causing him to nose-dive into his cup of coffee.

"Jamie, m'man!" Matt roared into his left ear as he wrapped a beefy arm around his shoulders into a half-bear hug. "You made it! Come on over and meet your goddaughter, Brenda! Hey--" Matt's voice became a whisper at this point "--hope you don't take this the wrong way, but my late mother-in-law's name was Julie, and, well--"

Matt gestured awkwardly; Wilson and Julie had finalized the divorce three months ago. Through mutual friends, Wilson had also heard that Julie was currently living in with their neighbor from when they were still married, the same man Julie had confessed to him was her lover. After hearing her confession, he packed up his things and headed for House's flat that same night.

"Its okay, Matthew," Wilson said reassuringly as he wiped some of the coffee off his face before looking back out to where he spotted Cameron earlier. As he'd suspected, Matt's big mouth had garnered Cameron's attention. Her aquamarine eyes had widened when she saw him, and he could see her turn a little pale, then bright pink, with surprise.

"C'mon, Jamie," Matt said, as though he wasn't troubled by the awkward pause. "Got an old friend of yours I want you to meet!"

---

The introductions were warm, but the smiles coming from the "old friends" were a bit strained.

He could tell Cameron was flustered, so he decided to take his cue from her and didn't mention how right Matt was about their being friends. Unlike House, Wilson knew when to do the interrogating, though he can be just as impatiently curious as his friend.

---

The time came after the christening of the twins. Wilson was thinking about how to invite Cameron out for a light snack somewhere when the lady in question beat him to it. He wondered if it was becoming a trend as the years go by---first Julie cheated on him first, now Cameron thought to invite him ahead of time for some sandwiches at Peanut Butter & Co. in Greenwich Village.

After munching some Elvis PB&J sandwiches ("This can't be healthy, but I can't seem to order any other sandwich here since I started getting cravings!") and some bit of small talk, Wilson finally broached the subject, albeit rather abruptly.

"Does House know about the baby, Cameron?" he asked softly, his brown eyes unwavering as he stared into her aquamarine ones.

She sighed and looked away for a moment before staring back at him, her gaze never wavering, "He doesn't."

"Why?" Wilson moved closer. "He may be an asinine, cynical boob, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a right not to know."

"It's complicated, Wilson," Cameron butted in. "It's complicated!"

"HOW complicated?" he whispered harshly, his voice laced with frustration and surprise. "Try me--I've been his friend this long; why doesn't he know?"

She stares back at him, her eyes wide and shimmering with unshed tears; she opened her mouth and waved her hands in little circles, trying to form the reason into words. After about a minute, she waved both her hands in the air and dropped them on the table before letting them rest on her distended stomach, her head following suit as her chin hit her chest. Taking a deep breath, without raising her head, she simply said, in a tiny voice, "He's not over her."

"Oh shit---House!" Wilson thought, his jaw dropping.

"I don't want to be in a one-sided relationship, Wilson," she whispered as she looked back up to his face. "I thought—but when it--when it--HAPPENED, he said HER name. I later had a pregnancy test and then---" she waved her hand dismally around the cheerfully decorated restaurant "--I decided to come here before I started showing signs--before he came back to work."

She broke down and sobbed. Wilson moved from the seat across her, knelt beside her, and placed the complementary tissue holder near her before putting an arm around her. After letting her emotions run its short course, he started to ask the same time she was about to tell him something:

"When are you due? I'd--like to know so that I can make space on my calendar of events..."

"There's something else..."

---

"Congratulations, Dr. Cameron---you have a beautiful baby boy!"

An exhausted Allison Cameron wept, smiling and hiccupping in relief. After pushing and cursing a certain someone to all the levels of Hell for putting her through this, her OB-GYNE took pity on her and, after obtaining her permission, performed a C-section to help her son make his entrance into the world.

Wilson had been by her side during the delivery, shaking his right hand, feeling that Cameron had permanently changed the shape of his metacarpus. His brown eyes widened when he heard Cameron tell one of the attendants that her son would be named Christopher James Cameron.

Cool---but he raised an eyebrow and kept silent on a certain omission to the baby's name.

"Dr. Larson," she said softly to the pediatrician, who was checking her baby's vitals. "How---?"

"It's not that bad, Allison," Dr. Larson said, green eyes crinkling behind very thick glasses. "With minor corrective surgery and physical therapy by the time he's two, he'll be tossing footballs across the fields by the time he's ten." He followed his little joke with a wink in her direction as he placed a bundle wrapped in a blue blanket and white cap into her arms.

Wilson and Cameron looked down at the little bit of wrinkled life, who was peering back at his mother with astonishing, familiar blue eyes.

"Proof that House had sex." Wilson muttered under his breath.

"I hate sports metaphors," Cameron muttered softly at the same time. "Hello, little boy," she cooed.

Christopher simply blinked.

---

Present day

Wilson was standing a few feet behind Cameron as she entered the conference room of the Department of Diagnostics. He stood back unnoticed as the reunion unfolded before him, wondering if he should take his godson and remove him from Ground Zero.

"You--didn't tell me."

Cameron instinctively held Chrisopher closer to her as House delivered that line in a soft tone, knowing that he was in her arms giving her comfort and strength. The baby had stopped sucking on the plastic donut, his blue eyes now fastened on the tall, forbidding stranger with similar, deep-set blue eyes, his little body tensing as he sensed something was going on.

"I had my reasons," Cameron said softly, rubbing her hand on Christopher's back when he began to squirm in her arms. "I had my reasons then; I have new reasons now."

"What? Need alimony for the baby? Want someone else to change his diapers?" he snapped; his voice got louder with every syllable he uttered. Christopher began to fuss; he had never seen an adult so angry and scary in his short little life before. He took comfort by turning and placing his face in his mother's shoulder, hanging on to her neck for dear life.

Cameron whispered something to her son before glaring at House.

"I asked for a referral from Pediatrics here at Princeton Plainsboro," she said softly with a hint of steel, "and Dr. Cuddy assured me of a position in the Immunology Department while Christopher undergoes treatment with Landers."

"Treatment?" House looked confounded. "Treatment for what?" He focused his stare at the baby, who felt it was safe to peek at his father, his eyes round and scared-looking.

Christopher held on to his mother tightly as Cameron stepped forward, pulling up the right leg of her son's stretchy pants and stretched out a chubby little leg for House's inspection.

"For this."

**xx**

**Comments are much appreciated!**


	5. Its mini House!

_Disclaimer: I don't own House--but I'm making plans. Who's with me?_

_---_

"**It's mini-House!"**

House stared at his son's leg. The first thing that came to his mind was, "Shit."

Christopher's lower leg had a peculiar depression, as though there was an invisible string wrapped tightly around it and making the area shrink in proportion to the rest of his leg.

It just happened to be on the same side that House had to favor after his infarction. The fates could **not** have a worse sense of humor.

He knew what his son had. Without a word, he raised his arms, asking Cameron silently for her to hand the baby to him. Cameron raised a dark auburn brow at him before hesitantly handing over Christopher to his outstretched arms.

House raised Christopher up by the armpits until they were seeing cyan eye to cyan eye; the baby pouted at him, kicking his legs energetically as he met his father's unwavering stare.

To Cameron and Wilson's bemusement, House suddenly smirked. Christopher's angry pout changed into a confused look at House's sudden change of facial expression before he cooed.

It sounded like a question.

House then moved to the conference table, setting Christopher down on his back. He rolled up the other leg of his stretchy pants—a dark blue Blue's Clues baby outfit—and compared the length of both the baby's legs. He had to grab both dimpled limbs as Christopher intensified the kicks; the baby went back to gumming on the plastic donut and staring seriously at the fuzzy-faced stranger holding his legs. Cameron moved to the other side of the table, holding her baby's torso in place, simply looking on as House inspected his son's legs.

"His right leg is a little shorter than the left," he muttered. Without thinking, he rubbed the amniotic banding on Christopher's right leg. "When did you find out he had it?" he asked aloud, rather sharply. Christopher jumped at the tone, and House apprehensively, but gently, patted Christopher's upper thigh, not caring that Cameron might still be looking.

Wilson raised an eyebrow, releasing the breath he didn't realize he was holding when House started raising his voice a few minutes ago.

"The OB-GYN found it when I had an ultrasound early in my third trimester," Cameron said softly. She gently tousled the wispy, curly auburn hair (Cameron's color, House observed) of her son. "We weren't sure when it happened—who does? The OB-GYN did assure me that the banding won't harm him or—disfigure him much."

She swallowed. "She also told me that I didn't have much water in me when I was carrying him…" she trailed off, covering her mouth with her hand as she breathed deeply through her nose to try and compose herself. She knew that 50 per cent of babies who have this congenital defect either die in the womb or enter the world with worse defects than what Christopher had; she should be grateful that it wasn't worse, but still...

She felt a warm hand squeeze her left shoulder and heard Wilson murmur, "It's not your fault" over and over again from behind her. She didn't hear House say softly, "It really isn't your fault."

---

For the moment, he centered his focus completely on little Christopher, letting Wilson comfort Cameron. He had quite a shock—it's not everyday your former underling returns from obscurity in order to provide you with proof you've procreated with her. And it was obvious that he had procreated with her…

The baby had wisps of curly, bright auburn hair; House had mahogany-brown hair at birth, but it was curly, too. Christopher's face was oval, framing Blythe—and Greg—House's dark blue eyes, his little chin had a hint of a cleft, and the depression above his mouth was deep. His little body was longish, promising a lanky physique—and an active one, if his vigorous kicking was anything to go by—provided that they get rid of the amniotic band around his lower leg first.

House leaned down to pick Christopher up; the baby was no longer apprehensive about him. He stopped slurping on his toy long enough to extended a chubby right hand to House's chin, rubbing soft-skinned knuckles across the rough texture. House leaned on his good leg, cradling his new-found son in the crook of his arm.

After two small failed attempts at finding a comfortable position for the both of them, House looked up to see Cameron staring at him, smiling through tear-filled eyes, and Wilson grinning at him like an idiot.

Jimbo has some explaining to do…

---

It was around this time that Chase and Foreman returned to the conference room.

"Cameron!"

"Hey, welcome back!"

Cameron wiped the tears from her face before turning around to greet her former co-workers. Chase stepped forward and enveloped her into a hug; Foreman hung back, with a strange smile on his face. The neurologist could no longer shift back into his old big brother role around Cameron after their spat about his stealing her article and the fact that he willingly "exposed" her to the then-unknown disease he was afflicted with. It had been more than a year, but words have been said and actions done that couldn't be taken back.

Cameron had said so herself.

This was why he was surprised when Cameron, after Chase released her from his hug, turned around and smiled at him. The smile was warm, and it made Foreman smile back; it was better than indifference or hostility.

"Welcome back," he said, extending a hand to her. A hug would have been too personal, and too soon.

"Thanks," Cameron replied, taking his hand and shaking it briefly.

"Whose baby is that?" Chase suddenly asked. He turned to House and Wilson after hugging Cameron, gawking momentarily at Christopher cradled in House's left arm. The infant's resemblance to the man holding him was mind-boggling.

House raised an eyebrow at Chase. "What? Haven't you heard—the stork made an express delivery after I placed an order twenty years ago," he said in a sarcastically joyful tone, raising Christopher a little in his arm—Christopher squealed at that—in order to get his "point" across. "I thought they forgot all about me and my need to satisfy my paternal instincts. Wilson here has agreed to play Mommy, but I had to turn him down—he's on a dry spell at the moment, and someone's gotta feed the kid. I was going to ask Cuddy to fill in the position…"

Wilson rolled his eyes, fighting to keep from laughing from the hilarity of it and from relief. He opted to turn around instead, feigning interest on the list of symptoms on the whiteboard. Cameron just rolled her eyes; Foreman stared at the baby, looking at Cameron and then at House.

Chase was still dumb-founded.

"It's—a mini-House! A clone—oh, my God!" he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. His gaze now turned to Cameron, his mouth opened wide to ask for an explanation. It took him five seconds of staring at Cameron before he closed his trap and turned his head to House, then Christopher—who became saucer-eyed himself as he watched the antics of the blond stranger—then back to Cameron, who was looking at the intensivist with a cocked eyebrow, crossing her arms and preparing for the revelation.

"You—you—you" the Australian stuttered, pointing at Cameron before moving his finger to House's direction. Foreman just stared—he already came to a conclusion (the correct one)—but he'd rather let the white man voice it out, for old times' sake.

"You—jumped—him!" Chase said in an accusatory tone. "And you had his kid!"

With the way he said it, he could have also said, "How could you!"

"So we did," Cameron replied, turning to walk to House and retrieve her son; he was squirming in House's arm and making sounds of irritation, a sign that his diaper was wet. "I'll go change Christopher first, then I have to meet with Dr. Cuddy; I have some paperwork to go over with her before I start working in the Immunology Department next Monday. I'll see you guys around. Come on, Chris."

Upon hearing the first part of Cameron's statement, House's face contorted into one of horror and disgust, and he made a big show of handing over Christopher back to his mother. As he passed the baby to Cameron, he purposefully brushed a hand over Cameron's, lingering there for a moment before drawing away.

Cameron looked at him. House looked back.

"Well, what're you waiting for?" House grouched. "I don't know how much that diaper's going to hold, and Maintenance just shampooed the carpet. Chase is going to be put out if he has to run back home to use his stash of shampoo to clean up the mess. Hey, it could even bring some sheen to this carpet!"

Foreman's shoulders shook as he snickered quietly. Chase immediately looked sullen.

"I'll go ahead of you, Cameron," Wilson piped up, still grinning. "I have to give Cuddy some—ah—warning first." The oncologist immediately headed out of the door before House could call him back and interrogate him. Cameron followed suit with Christopher looking back at House from her shoulder; she grabbed a gigantic blue bag from one of the chairs on her way to the door.

House stared after her until she got away from his line of vision, turning around to his remaining two minions.

"Well? Whaddaya got? I assumed you've got something new about Amy—"

"Her name's Anne," Foreman interrupted. "And we did find something in her MRI."

"Give it to me, homie," House muttered, turning to the whiteboard.

---

_Dare I continue?_


	6. Definitely a Kodak moment

_Disclaimer: Nope---don't own it. I want to write Shore & co. about it, but I'm too shy._

---

**Definitely a Kodak moment**

_Abdominal pain—fever—vomiting—dizziness—nausea—severe headaches—prurutis_

"Patient has some slightly enlarged lymph nodes; sent the results over to Wilson's office—" Foreman shared before a cynical voice interrupted his findings.

"Did you check her teeth?"

House was glad he turned around when he asked this; Foreman and Chase, despite the obvious, looked like a pair of twins with their identical expressions that bespoke of "What the hell?"

"Her teeth, men!" House cried. "Chase, stop snacking on that pencil and tell me how much of her medical history did you take?"

"A lot," the Australian replied sourly, removing the number 1 pencil from his mouth in order to add, "Family was very informative; Mum's side got diabetes, cancer, and one cousin thrice removed with autism. Dad's side of the family has hypertension and asthma. One of Anne's sisters had a cyst removed from her ovary ten years ago, two siblings had childhood cancer, and Anne herself has asthma and a mild case of hypothyroidism. I've got three more pages from the Mum's side of the family, all the way to relatives in the third degree. I'd say **that's** pretty detailed."

House raised an eyebrow at that; in the middle of Chase's drone of Anne's family history, he went to his office to pick up his red and gray "thinking ball" and was now tossing it up and down in the air. "Mrs. Anne's mother is very chatty—did she say **anything else** about the daughter who's presently in this hospital right now? Like, what she did, swallowed, slept with, and inhaled?"

Chase looked indignantly at House before replying.

"Anne's on some kind of diet, she's got some cuts from a biking accident—still healing—and she was recovering from an upper respiratory infection she got a month before…"

"And yet you still didn't check her teeth?"

"No—what am I, her dentist? Her sister's one…"

House didn't answer. He was hobbling for the door and to the elevators, heading for Anne's room.

--

The case was solved, yet Cuddy and Foreman had to talk with Anne's parents so that they wouldn't sue after House barged into the room, and—after asking Anne if she'd seen her dentist sister lately, to which she answered in the negative—grabbed her lower jaw and forced her mouth open.

"Tsk, tsk—Andie—" House began.

"Her name is Anne—and what the hell do you think you're doing to my daughter, you bastard!" Anne's father roared. The patient was gagging as House flicked open a light somewhere overhead and moved Anne's head towards it, tilting her head so that the light would hit the insides of her mouth.

"As I suspected," House muttered. "You know, there is a reason why it's called ascorbic acid…"

The moment House let go of Anne's head, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder, turned him around viciously, and a fist went flying to his jaw.

--

_Earlier…_

"Dr. Cameron's here," Wilson called cheerfully from the double-door entrance to Dr. Lisa Cuddy's office. Its sole occupant and owner glanced up briefly from the pile of paperwork she was poring over, automatically filing the goofy grin on Wilson's face as simply a friend's joy of a returning colleague.

"Well, where is she? I'd really like to see her in person, you know." Cuddy said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Did she bring her son with her? Good, excellent timing—Landers is doing the rounds at the moment; I'll page him so that she can check over Cameron's son."

Cuddy wrote something in a black leather organizer before she stood up and looked at Wilson closely. _What the hell is up with that grin?_

Her angular, beautiful face registered more confusion when Wilson ducked his head behind the glass-paneled wooden door, looking behind him for a moment, before he opened the door wide for the person approaching Cuddy's office. "She's here!" he said loudly, with a trace of repressed excitement.

The moment Cameron entered the room with Christopher, freshly changed, Cuddy's jaw dropped as she gasped, "Oh—my—GOD!"

Definitely a Kodak moment; Wilson was so glad he dropped by his office first to get his digital camera…

--

_Later…_

"Ow! Jesus, woman, haven't you heard of something called the hippo's oath!" House sniped. He was making it sound worse than it really was; after Cuddy sufficiently calmed down Anne Mendoza's father, she grabbed House's arm and frog-marched him into Exam room 1 and drew the blinds, even after House said, loudly, into a waiting room full of patients: "How many times do I have to tell you, you sex fiend—I'm not into **that**!"

"The **Hippo—cratic **oath?" Cuddy sneered as she sharply dabbed more antiseptic onto House's broken lip, causing the man to wince. "Stop moving, I'm not done with you yet, you psycho! Yeah, I've heard of it—but I forgot about it when Mr. Mendoza let you have it after you scared the living daylights out of his daughter, which I assumed was the time **you** forgot the Hippocratic oath!"

"She wouldn't open her mouth! I had to prove she had rotting teeth before I can tally it up next to her other symptoms on my whiteboard and file it under 'Vitamin C overdose'—_gaaaaah_!"

House snapped his head away from Cuddy's ministrations—if a masochist would even call it that—before adding, "And she definitely didn't want to tell her folks she tested positive for diabetes like her mother at her age when her wounds weren't—_yow!_—healing properly. This is what happens when a kid in an unhealthy family becomes a hypochondriac…"

"I know," Cuddy muttered, patching up House's split lip, cleaning the mess, and retrieving a cold compress from the mini-fridge hidden behind one of the cabinets, which she slapped onto House's face. She looked at the results of her handiwork before continuing, "Hopefully, Christopher wouldn't inherit your need to prove everyone wrong by assaulting them. I have my hopes that Cameron would guide him in the right direction."

House was about to quip about Cuddy's lack of bedside manner when she beat him to it. "You talked to Cameron."

It wasn't a question.

"I did," Cuddy said softly. Until seeing Christopher, aside from the auburn hair, Lisa Cuddy never thought she could actually _picture_ Gregory House as a baby.

--

_Earlier…_

The moment she got a closer look at Christopher—she momentarily forgot about discussing Cameron's new contract with the hospital—Dr. Cuddy knew who fathered him. The flash from Wilson's digital camera brought her back to the present.

"Dr. Wilson!"

"Sorry," Wilson said sheepishly. "I promise not to share this with House, and to make copies for each of you." Wilson hoped that mentally crossing your fingers would count—

Cuddy glowered at him for a few moments before turning back to Cameron and her son—she found it alarming to see House's look-alike so _cute_, knowing his father. It's rather fortunate that someone like Allison Cameron would raise him, certain that the younger woman would make sure the little innocent would avoid turning into another Gregory House.

Christopher also stirred something inside Cuddy—a maternal yearning. She stretched out her arms to the baby, "May I?"

Cameron smiled as she handed Christopher over to Cuddy, who carefully eased him into the crook of her arm. Cameron and Wilson looked at each other, a little bewildered—first House, now the formidable Lisa Cuddy, tweaking Christopher's nose and murmuring something to him that sounded like, "You won't terrorize nurses when you grow up, won't you, hmm?" In a cutesy, high-pitched, baby-talk voice, no less!

Wilson couldn't help it; he took another picture in Cuddy's office. House wouldn't have believed him even if he told him.

--

"He's a beautiful baby—hope he doesn't inherit his father's _wonderful_ sense of right and wrong," Cuddy said to him, not bothering to hide how funny she found the situation all of a sudden.

House glared at her. Cuddy just raised an eyebrow at him before she sobered a little as she walked to the door.

"Count this as a piece of advice from…a colleague, House: regardless of the present state of your relationship with her, you do realize she's going to need your help in bringing up the baby. He needs his daddy, and despite your being an ass, you're going to be a good ass about it. I don't think you have enough of **your** father in you to screw him up."

House still continued to glare at her. Cuddy sighed.

"Landers is the best," Cuddy continued softly. "She and Dr. Cartwright are the best in their fields, and they'll be able to fix Christopher's leg. Count on it."

--

Vitamin C overdose information at: http/www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/uspdi/202071.html


	7. Room 315

**Room 315**

House got out of Exam Room 1 about twenty minutes after Cuddy left. Several people were staring at his face; one woman shielded her little boy's eyes as House passed. House paused in front of this woman and loudly whispered, with a conversational tone in his voice, "She felt guilty."

The woman looked outraged and like a fish out of water. House didn't stop to appreciate his handiwork; he had an oncologist to interrogate.

* * *

Wilson had offered to take Cameron and Christopher back to their hotel--mother and son had taken the cab to PPTH--and it wasn't just out of common decency.

"Trying to avoid someone?" Cameron said teasingly. They were in the parking lot, walking to Wilson's car; Christopher draped over Wilson's shoulder, fast asleep. The little darling tuckered out after meeting so many people and visiting many places in the hospital. He made quite a racket during his first check-up with Dr. Landers, though—Cameron turned red and explained loudly over the racket Christopher was making that it was near his naptime. The plump, elfin-faced pediatrician smiled sympathetically and nodded.

"Christopher isn't the only patient of mine who comes in here trying to wake up the coma patients," Dr. Landers said conversationally.

Cameron grinned sheepishly.

"Dr. Larson is right," Landers said, whipping off her gloves after thoroughly looking over Christopher, who was beginning to quiet down and yawn. "Though the banding isn't severe, it will affect the development of his right leg. I suggest setting up an appointment with Dr. Cartwright as soon as possible, in order to avoid complications when he gets older."

Landers walked over to the sink in the examination room of her office and began to wash her hands. "You should've brought him to a specialist last month, but what's in a month, eh?"

Cameron just smiled faintly, rocking her son slowly to sleep.

* * *

"So, you're meeting up with Cartwright tomorrow?" Wilson asked as he set-up Christopher's car seat in the back of his car. Cameron was leaning on the trunk, smoothing Christopher's hair from his fair brow.

"Landers called up his office, but he was in the operating room at the time," she replied. "Left a note with the secretary instead, then went to Cuddy's office to take my leave. Had to leave another note to HER secretary; she was off trying to fix whatever mess House tried to get the hospital into."

Wilson sighed. "House kind of manhandled his latest patient; the patient's dad went medieval on him."

Cameron raised a dark auburn brow. "How'd you know about that?"

Wilson grinned as he backed out of the car door, holding his hands out for Christopher. "The nurse's station is also known as 'Information', did you know that?"

* * *

House was chuffed. Wilson bailed out on him, the wily little sneak.

He looked just about everywhere: Wilson's office, the lounge in oncology, the cafeteria, the nurse's station, the office where the cute blond accountant Wilson flirted with (though he denies it) works at. Nothing.

House did get a major clue as he stood on the second-floor balcony, overlooking the entrance to the hospital and the Clinic.

Nurse Brenda and some new girl were leaving the Clinic, heading for the cafeteria. They were chatting up a storm, so absorbed in their gossip that they didn't notice that someone was paying them a lot of attention.

"...sure think that those two are becoming an item." Brenda said caustically. "Did you see how Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cameron were talking to each other?"

"They'd better not be an item!" the younger woman nasally cried, making House and Brenda wince. "I'm makin' an emotional investment in Dr. JAMES." The last word was said dreamily.

Brenda snorted. "You want to become Mrs. Wilson number 23? Pick a number---the nurses in oncology and maternity already got dibs on him."

Whatever else the nasal nurse was going to say, House wasn't there to hear it. He was hobbling back to Wilson's office.

* * *

Wilson was walking back to his car when he heard the unmistakable roar of a motorcycle entering the parking lot of the hotel. He immediately started chanting inside his head "Please let it NOT be House" as he nonchalantly, calmly, made his way to his car parked a few meters away.

The roaring got louder as the motorcyclist revved the engine and parked in front of Wilson's car, turning off the engine before he took off his helmet.

"Hello, JAMES," House called out to Wilson, mimicking the nasal nurse's breathy pronunciation of his first name. Wilson gave House a blank look before something kicked in his memory.

"Have you been talking to Nurse Francine?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Oh, so Mrs. Wilson number 23 is going to be named Francine?"

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Bite me, House!" he muttered.

"Why? Do I have a reason to go Tyson on you?"

"I've got enough of funny voices for one day, House."

"Oh, ho, ho—very funny!"

House got off his bike, unsheathing his cane from the cane holder on the side of his bike. He hobbled over to Wilson, who was holding his ground. House popped open a bottle of Vicodin and popped two pills into his mouth, letting his saliva coat them slowly before swallowing them.

He didn't mince words. Wilson was resigned to telling him the truth.

"How long did you know?"

"Two weeks before she gave birth, so it's about five months..."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You'd yell at me."

"NO I WOULDN'T!"

"See!"

House ran a large hand through his hair. Wilson breathed in calmly before continuing.

"A little hard to tell WHEN the right time to tell you would come until Cameron told me she was moving back here with Christopher," he said quietly. "You were a little nuts after the ketamine wore off and the pain came back. I DID try to broach the subject about Cameron, but every time I try, you get nasty—well—NASTIER than usual."

House stared sullenly at Wilson for a long time. Wilson was about to say, "I got some nice pictures of Christopher and Cuddy!" when House softly asked,

"What room is she in?"

"Room 315," Wilson blurted out, almost without thinking. He wanted to kick himself for sort of betraying Cameron, but House decided to do it for him by delivering a smart smack of his cane on his right shin.

"Thanks."

"What'd you do that for!" Wilson yelped.

"For lying to me," House replied glibly, hobbling for the entrance to the hotel. He didn't notice when Wilson called out, "How the hell am I supposed to get my car out, House!"

* * *

House hobbled fast for Room 315, his heart thumping with exertion, with anticipation. His head was swamped with innumerable questions for Cameron. He wanted equilibrium back into his world, and after disturbing it, he felt that Cameron and Christopher might bring it back somewhat.

But first he wants some questions answered. He wants to see Cameron, talk to her---and for some reason, he wants to hold the baby in his arms again.

House stopped in front of the door at the end of the corridor.

Room 315.

He lifted his cane, using the handle to knock smartly on the door about seven times. He heard something metal slide on wood.

"House?" came Cameron's muffled cry of surprise. "What're you doing here?"

"We need to talk." House called out.

He heard her sigh on the other side of the door.

"Now's not a good time House," Cameron said loudly. "I'll see you tomorrow, around lunch..."

"No—we need to talk now, Cameron." House said, letting his voice get louder. "Open up! Don't make me embarass you in this hotel!"

A gasp.

"You wouldn't DARE!"

She should've known better.

"Oh, baby!" House yelled, letting his voice carry throughout the corridor. "I can't BUH-LEEEVE I knocked you up in one night! ONE NIGHT—woo!"

"Okay, okay, OKAY!" Cameron cried in exasperation. House heard the clatter and slide of metal on metal as Cameron unlocked the door.

"Happy now?" Cameron muttered, opening the door wide.

House couldn't say anything. His jaw dropped as he ogled Cameron's blouse, buttoned-down to reveal pale, creamy skin, a strap of a cream-colored bra...

...and little Christopher feeding from her breast.

(Its a little choppy, I know---apologies for the lateness in updating! The Muses went on vacation.)


	8. Sliding doors

**Sorry for the delay. The Muses make me work for this plot...**

* * *

"What?" Cameron sniped, fishing a large hand towel from the crook of the arm that was holding Christopher and tossing it over her exposed shoulder, covering her as decently as possible. "Never seen a mother breastfeed before? Honestly, with your _experience_, one would think that this"––here, Cameron's free arm gestured at her state of almost-undress––"would be…"

Whatever it would be will never be known to House, because Christopher's whimpers of distress cut off his mother's tirade. Cameron immediately moved to comfort the baby, turning around so that she could readjust him on her shoulder without giving his father any more "views".

House shook his head before stepping inside the room, closing the door behind him.

"Living room's over there," Cameron said as she walked away from him, rubbing Christopher's back in soothing motions. She walked to her room and closed the door behind her. Cameron placed Christopher down in the middle of the bed before adjusting her maternity bra and blouse. She looked down briefly to make sure she looked presentable before she picked up her son from the bed and opened the door. She nearly dropped the baby when she saw House standing on the other side of her bedroom door.

"Why did you leave?" he asked gruffly.

Momentarily confused, Cameron said, "Christopher went to sleep and—"

"Not today!" House cried in exasperation. Christopher looked up from his prone position on Cameron's shoulder and looked at House, wide-eyed in surprise. "Why'd you leave last year? And why didn't you tell me about mini-me over here?" He raised his left hand to indicate Christopher, who followed the path of his father's hand with a steady blue gaze of wonderment. Fascinated, House waved his hand again in front of Christopher's face; he stopped abruptly when he saw Cameron's look.

"I'm waving for emphasis," he muttered. "Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"I might," Cameron said calmly, "if you'll let me pass."

House stood to one side, letting Cameron and Christopher pass, before following them to the living room. She motioned for him to sit on the sofa, rocking Christopher in her arms so that he could be lulled to sleep. She fixed House with a warning glare.

_Keep it civil._

House looked impassive.

"You didn't answer my question yet," he said gruffly, trying not to appear obvious as he closely observed Cameron and her attempts to calm down Christopher. Christopher obviously was not ready to be put to sleep; he tried to find an available breast to nurse from, rubbing his face in Cameron's chest and mewling pitifully.

House squirmed uncomfortably.

_Lucky kid._

Above Christopher's whimpers and grunts, Cameron heard their visitor sigh as the stuffed chair he sat on creaked as he stood up. The next thing she heard was the scrape of wood on rough carpet; when she raised her head and looked, House was sitting back down on the chair, which was now conveniently facing the opposite direction.

"You better start feeding Nemo over there before he starts bawling his lungs out," House said brusquely, "What will Child Services say?"

"I'll tell them it's his father's fault," Cameron shot back, "because he's so infuriating." She quickly grabbed two overstuffed throw pillows from the corners of the couch and placed them behind her. Checking to see that House wouldn't peek over the stuffed chair, she undid her blouse and the left cup of her maternity bra before settling down comfortably and letting Christopher continue his rudely interrupted dinner.

She was so intent on her task that she momentarily forgot about the sliding glass doors a short distance beyond the living room area. Though the reflection wasn't good and the chair was angled a few degrees away from the glass doors, House saw everything. He tightened his hold on the cane when Cameron exposed a creamy left breast for a moment until Christopher's auburn-haired head blocked his view. Before House's mind had any chance to dwell on impure thoughts about cup sizes, the baby's noisy smacking brought him back to reality.

"Well!" he said loudly in mock enthusiasm. "Judging by the sound of THAT, I can see why Nemo there couldn't wait to find his way home to dinner! Any chance of sampling some of that, _Mom_?"

Cameron snorted, choosing to ignore the suggestive question as she leaned back on the pillows and adjusted her hold on Christopher. She wasn't comfortable, being exposed like this. The sooner House got out of her hotel room, the better.

House seemed to share her sentiments on the matter.

"Why did you leave, Cameron?" he asked gruffly. He centered his gaze on her reflection in the sliding glass doors, seeing her contort her beautiful face into different expressions as her sharp mind whittled up an answer to his question. The one that came back repeatedly was a wince of pain—House couldn't tell if it was from a flashback or if Christopher was getting a little too enthusiastic in getting his dinner.

Then he saw the wince replaced with a look of resignation. "Why do you care, House?" Cameron asked quietly.

"Maybe it's because I'm a closet Care Bear and I'm ready to come out," House replied glibly, coating each word with bitterness as he spoke. "or its because I felt used last time you were at my place; I wanted to hear from you if all you ever wanted from me was the sex or if you've finally made a hypocrite out of yourself."

"What do you mean I made a hypocrite of myself?!"

House saw her eyes widen with outrage. She was doing that clenching thing again; Christopher began to fret again in her arms. Stubborn ass that he is, he ignored the warning signs and continued.

"Somehow, you appointed yourself as a well-meaning martyr after you married your dying sweetheart and stuck it with him until the end. Then you got me in your line of vision and admitted that you _like_ me and wanted to help me and all that hero-worshipping shit. After that, you claimed that you hated me when Stacy came back—nice bit of self-denial there, Cameron.

"Then I got shot—somehow, Mom likes you and appointed you my official nanny while I was on sick leave. Then we did _it_—and you left."

House stood up at that point. He slowly limped his way to Cameron, his fantastic blue eyes never leaving her aquamarine eyes, which darkened to a dusky shade of blue.

He stood over her, looking down at her with an impassive face and eyes filled with a mixture of hurt and longing. Cameron held Christopher close to her, holding on to him to protect him and using his little body to cover her exposed flesh.

"Didn't like the damage you saw, didn't you, _Allison_? Was I too damaged for you to save that you had to leave me and never given me any idea about Christopher's existence?"

Cameron's face went blank for thirty seconds before a look of incredulity came over her. "Unbelievable, House," she whispered, shaking her head at him. She stood up from the couch a bit awkwardly—she didn't have the chance to cover herself decently and was still clutching at Christopher's body over her naked left breast—and walked a few steps forward to House, who moved back a bit.

"You are damaged, House," she said softly. "I don't have it in me to change you for better or for worse, and I still don't care about that scar or whether you're older than me—I would've stayed either way.

"You want to know why I left before you came back? I had two reasons…"

**vv**

_There was a sense of urgency to make it last all night._

_Before and after Cameron got married, she had been in few relationships that had been sexually intense and satisfying, but none of them equaled to what was happening between her and House. A niggling worry about the lack of protection was pushed further back into the periphery of her mind when House reached for her again._

"_Oh my GOD!" she gasped as evidence of House's arousal was pressed against her ass. "House, this is the—ooh!—third time. Is this a side-effect of—ohGodYES—ketamine?!"_

_House chuckled wickedly as he nibbled at the base of Cameron's neck, alternating his puppy nips with teasing licks as he prepared himself and Cameron…_

_She screamed into the pillow when she came, and she felt House spill inside her for a third time, felt him shuddering with passion…_

_She was basking in the afterglow, their bodies in a spooning position, his hands caressing her limp and satiated body, when these words shattered the moment—her moment:_

"…_beautiful, Stacy…"_

_When House woke up the next morning, he saw Cameron placing the phone down on the cradle. She was dressed in the clothes she wore yesterday. House was about to say something when the incessant beeping of a cab cut through the silence._

"_I have to go House."_

_He saw her letter of resignation on his desk three weeks later._

**vv**

House looked like he'd been shot in the gut again.

"Cameron, I'm—"

"The second reason came from Jason's family," Cameron continued.

"Jason?"

"My late husband; his family didn't approve of our marriage. I received a message from my sister-in-law, asking me to call her. Anyway, I flew out to Colorado the following day and met up with their family lawyer––"

"Let me guess," House cut in flatly. "The dearly departed left you a neat little nest egg."

Cameron nodded. "That's when I found out that I was pregnant…"

"…and decided not to inform me of my impending fatherhood." House quietly finished for her.

They fell silent then, looking at Christopher at the same time. The baby had witnessed his parents' verbal sparring without making a peep.

**vv**

When he saw House get off the elevator, Wilson jumped up from the couch in the lobby and chased him to the hotel doors. Wilson looked like he napped on the couch while waiting for House.

"Still here, Wilson?" House asked in mock surprise. Wilson scowled.

"Well, your bike effectively blocked my escape route, and it's too heavy to push out of the way," Wilson grumbled. "What happened between the two of you?"

House paused halfway to his parked motorcycle. Wilson looked at his face from the side, and it was enough to tell him that Cameron had finally told him the truth.


	9. Four days later

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. (Jane Austen, _Northanger Abbey_)

Warning: graphic stuff, fluff, and some questionable medical information and basics

* * *

_Four days later._

"Chase!"

Dr. Robert Chase looked up from his crossword puzzle at House, with the business end of a pencil in his mouth and a deer-in-the-headlights look on the rest of his face. House grudgingly admitted to himself that it was amazing Chase didn't topple backwards, with his feet perched precariously on top of the conference room table.

"Suit up and scrub up," House barked, tossing a green file folder at the intensivist before hobbling for the coffeemaker. The folder landed on the younger man's chest. Foreman, who had just finished washing his own mug, stepped forward to Chase as the folder was being opened. A set of blond eyebrows rose up to a darker blond hairline.

"New case?" Foreman asked.

"No—this is the file for Christopher Cameron," Chase said in bewilderment, lowering the file to his lap and gazing up at his boss, who is presently fixing himself a mug of coffee. Foreman arched a brow, taking the file from Chase's hands and taking a closer look at it.

"The circumferential Z-plasty surgery is scheduled for today—Dr. Dominic Cartwright is leading it, and it starts in," Foreman checked his watch, "20 minutes."

"Well, what are you waiting for, Blondie?!" House boomed, hooking the handle of his cane onto Chase's left foot and pulled it towards him. Chase yelped, managing to correct his balance and leap out of his chair before his backside collided with the floor, looking indignant. He was about to give voice to his outrage when he took a good look at House.

Chase backed down.

"I'll go suit up."

* * *

Wilson found Cameron standing all by herself in the visitor's area outside the operating theater, her slender frame leaning against one of the four pillars.

"How long have you been standing there, Cameron?" he asked gently.

Cameron raised her head and turned slightly to look back at him. Wilson felt a pang—when had he ever seen Cameron's mouth drawn so tightly?

He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently guided her to a nearby chair. Cameron plopped down gracefully on the hard plastic seat. After sitting beside her and making the obvious gesture, she rested her head on his shoulder, relishing this contact with a sympathetic human being as Wilson wrapped his left arm around her and squeezed gently.

She needed this—especially when the man who should be here with her wasn't there to do so.

* * *

Chase stood next to Dr. Cartwright, a silent observer during the entire procedure. When Chase entered the operating room in his yellow scrubs, Dr. Cartwright had already started excising the constriction band around Christopher's leg.

"Thought you might need help here, Dr. Cartwright," Chase said by way of introduction.

The older man raised a silvery eyebrow at the newcomer.

"Appreciate it, Dr. Chase," Cartwright replied in a deep baritone voice. "We're just about done freeing the band. I'll need another pair of eyes and opinions when I start reconnecting the tissues and skin in a bit."

"Right," Chase said quietly, moving to stand next to the burly surgeon. As he walked, Chase looked up to the observation deck and saw two familiar figures standing behind the glass.

* * *

House popped two pills into his mouth and dry swallowed them without breaking his gaze from the procedure going on below him. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a splash of bright red reflecting on the clear glass.

"Did you make sure Ferdinand the bull didn't follow you here, Dr. Cuddy?" House asked gruffly, breaking the awkward silence after ten minutes. "I swear, you'll bring more dough to the hospital if you can ask Spain to hold the running of the bulls here in New Jersey and use that blouse to lead them."

"I'll bring it up in the next meeting with the board of directors," Cuddy replied tartly, crossing her arms under her exceptional cleavage and leaning against the wall opposite House, looking down at the operating room. "I see Dr. Chase has graced the team with his presence—you don't trust Cartwright?"

House shrugged. "Cartwright's okay, but at his age, I figured he needed fresh eyes, so I sent Chase down there to donate his."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "For your information, Cartwright has excellent eyesight for a man his age, and I've yet to his hand shake during surgery."

"Oh—well, let's just hope Chase doesn't distract the nurses down there with his pretty then."

"That's what masks are for, House. Have you met with Cameron yet?"

House didn't answer; Cuddy noticed the muscles in his jaw clenching through his stubble and didn't press the issue.

* * *

Hours later, Cameron sat next to Christopher's bed in the ICU. Chase walked into the room, cleaned up and back to wearing a lab coat over a mustard-yellow shirt, plaid tie, and dark brown pants. Secretly, Cameron wondered for the umpteenth time how a good-looking guy could have such an atrocious taste in clothes.

"How're you holding up, Cameron?" Chase asked quietly.

"Better," Cameron replied wearily. She took Christopher's right hand into her own, rubbing a thumb over his delicate knuckles as she once again ran a critical eye over his tiny body. _It's finally done_, she thought to herself in relief.

"Christopher's quite the little trooper," Chase said, grinning.

"Thanks." Cameron beamed up at her colleague briefly before frowning in concern. "Chris still has a long way to go, though."

She bit her lower lip.

"Cartwright told me after they wheeled Chris in here," Chase murmured, moving to place a comforting hand on Cameron's shoulder, and then thought the better of it. He still hasn't forgotten the time she went high on Kalvin's party drugs—"He might have to undergo distraction osteogenesis to lengthen his leg."

They winced in unison. Distraction osteogenesis is a radical reconstructive procedure that involves surgically fracturing the bone into two. Special surgical screws will then be put into place in order to move the two ends apart, slow enough so that new bone can grow in the gap. It works in achieving the goal of lengthening bone, but it is an excruciating process for the patient.

Cameron squeezed her baby's hand.

"My son is not going to get that surgery," Cameron whispered harshly. "I'm not going to put him through that pain."

* * *

It is 10:45 PM at PPTH. A tall man is limping in the direction of the ICU, pausing at the entrance and looking inside briefly.

Cameron is slumped on a chair next to Christopher's bed, wrapped in a large purple blanket made of some kind of fluffy material. Little Christopher looks peaceful in his drug-induced sleep, his tiny chest rising and falling, with the occasional twitch of little hands in the air.

House carefully entered the room; he didn't want to wake up Cameron. He paused beside Christopher, reaching out with his free hand to touch a chubby cheek. In sleep, Christopher jerked his head, making a weird face before it relaxed back into peaceful repose. House grinned and placed a tiny package next to Christopher's side.

House then hobbled quietly to where Cameron slept, taking the luxury of time and being unobserved to look at her. On impulse, he leaned forward and softly kissed the corner of her lips.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Even as he tore out of the parking lot on his motorcycle, House had no idea why he did that.

* * *

Dr. Lisa Cuddy is walking away from the counter at a drugstore a few miles away from PPTH, looking down at the contents of a plastic bag when she suddenly collided against a solid form entering the premises. Cuddy gasped in surprise and let go of the bag.

Two people cried out "I'm sorry!" before recognizing the person they bumped into.

"Cuddy!"

"Wilson!"

Flustered, the two doctors bent down and collected the items that scattered out of the plastic bag. Most of the items were her basic toiletries, but there was one she was anxious to collect and hide before her colleague spotted it.

As she sorted the things into the bag, she noticed that Wilson had paused. Inwardly groaning, Cuddy looked up at Wilson's gaze of shock, holding the home pregnancy test kit in his hand.

* * *

Sources for surgery/treatment:

http://www.surgery. 


	10. Emergency stash

House entered his apartment, limping uncomfortably in the direction of the bedroom as he took out the Vicodin bottle and shook two pills from it, which he promptly swallowed. In his bedroom, he removed his jacket and wrapped it around a chair near the door, then sat down on it and bent over to remove his shoes and socks. He left his cane and shoes near the chair as he limped carefully in the direction of his bathroom.

He removed the rest of his clothes in the bathroom. Before he entered the shower stall, House placed his hands on the rim of the sink and looked into the mirror.

_What the hell did she ever see in me?_

The last time he had a good look at himself—a really critical look at himself—was over ten years ago. He was getting ready to meet Stacy at some French restaurant near the hospital, and he was psyching himself up to ask her to move in with him. The reflection looking back at him then didn't have the hard, worn look permanently etched on a long face. The crow's feet were barely visible, he had been smooth-shaven, and his hair hadn't been retreating yet.

He also remembered that he had both feet planted on the earth without discomfort.

The face in the mirror glared back at him before it turned to the direction of the shower stall.

* * *

Wilson slowly stood up and handed the pregnancy test kit to Cuddy without a word.

A flushed Cuddy took it from him with a soft, "Thanks" before placing it in her shopping bag. It took a lot of effort for her to walk out of the premises and to her car.

Cuddy was already on the highway before her cool façade finally cracked. By the time she maneuvered her car into her driveway, her sides hurt from the hysterical laughter.

_This ought to be a good sign_, she thought to herself, picking up the kit from the bag as she walked to her front door.

Cameron woke up the next day, stiff and sore from her awkward position on the chair. She stood up and stretched a bit to work the kinks out of her back and limbs. When she turned to Christopher's bed, she saw something green near the baby's right hand.

Upon closer inspection, Cameron grinned. Although highly inappropriate for a four-month-old baby, she decided to let Christopher keep the model Gravedigger monster truck—after she removed the tires.

It is from his father, after all.

But then the grin disappeared from her face as she looked into Christopher's face. After dropping the bomb on House days ago, she knew he had been avoiding her. As she brought Christopher to his appointments with Drs. Cartwright and Landers, Cameron tried not to look for him.

Wilson had told her that House was working on a tricky case the following week. Chase and Foreman corroborated his account and added that House has them running ragged with tests and break-ins at the patient's house and office.

"I'm telling you, the man's finally lost it," Foreman muttered before he took a large bite out of his club sandwich.

Cameron frowned before turning her attention to Chase, who was making weird faces at Christopher in his stroller. The baby barely reacted to Chase's antics—Cameron thought her son was much closer to crying than to laughing.

"Have you guys found my replacement yet?" she asked Foreman. The neurologist shook his head.

"Thought we had a winner yesterday," he said softly, looking around in the cafeteria to make sure a tall, cranky, middle-aged man with a cane wasn't within hearing distance. "Took a look in the man's resume—guy worked in the Mayo Clinic and worked for a while with the CDC. Ten minutes with House, the guy jumped ship."

Cameron groaned. The only thing that took shook her out of it was when she heard Chase's "Oi!"

Trust her little man to get his mommy out of the funk—Chase had leaned in too close to Christopher, playing peek-a-boo with the baby. The second time Chase moved his face into the baby's direction, Christopher suddenly clapped his chubby hands on the man's nose. It surprised Chase so much, he lost his balance and toppled sideways, almost tripping three interns walking to their table.

_That_ was when Christopher laughed.

* * *

The elevator opened at the fourth floor at 7:45 PM that night. Its lone passenger walked out, her beautiful olive face etched in annoyance as she made long, purposeful strides in three-inch heels, heading for the office of a certain oncologist.

As she suspected, Wilson was still in his office. Since he finalized his divorce from Julie, she noticed that Wilson had been working overtime. Cuddy speculated that Wilson was avoiding jumping back into the dating pool.

_Wise decision_, Cuddy thought, pushing aside the memory of their date that tanked before entering his office.

Wilson looked up as Cuddy entered his office. _Don't ask her about the kit, don't ask her about the kit_…

"Got a moment, Dr. Wilson?" Cuddy asked, closing the door behind her.

* * *

"Christopher is doing well," Dr. Cartwright said brightly after looking in on his patient in the ICU that afternoon. "He's going to have to learn to deal with that cast for a while. If he behaves, you can take him home by next week."

"Thank you, Dr. Cartwright," Cameron said gratefully, shaking the surgeon's hand.

When Cartwright's large frame disappeared from her view, Cameron noticed a tall figure move away from a pillar flanking the nurse's station.

Cameron tucked the blanket around Christopher before looking back outside. House was still there. He shifted uneasily, looking down and to the sides before raising his head and locking a piercing blue gaze at her. He made an irritable gesture at Cameron to get out of the room.

Curious, Cameron decided to humor him tonight. Before leaving, she called for a nurse, telling her to contact her if something comes up with Christopher before placing a quick kiss on his soft cheek.

When she went outside, Cameron saw House limping for the elevators.

"House!"

He didn't stop. For a cripple, House moved quite fast. Cameron had to jog in order to catch up to him as he pressed the "down" button.

Taking a deep breath, Cameron looked up at him and wheezed, "You––couldn't––have––come––into––the––room?"

"Can't," House replied lightly, looking up at the numbers as the elevator made its progress to their floor. "It's the Intensive Care Unit—so many fragile sick people in there, I might catch something!"

Cameron snorted. "Its just Christopher and two other kids in there, House."

The elevator opened quietly; House entered it and held it open for Cameron, who followed.

"What do you want, House?" she asked, placing her hands on her waist and raising an eyebrow at him.

The elevator moved down one floor when House suddenly reached out and pressed the Emergency stop button with his cane. Cameron jumped as a warning bell rang out and the elevator ground to a halt.

"House! What are you—"

House cut her off by grabbing her by the waist and kissing her senseless.

* * *

Five minutes later, the elevator stopped at the fourth floor. The taller of the two passengers was leading the smaller one out of it, moving quite fast for someone who depended on a cane for greater mobility.

Cameron looked dazed. She hadn't been kissed like that since—since that stormy night more than a year ago. Her body was tingling where those wonderful long fingers touched her, particularly her back and backside.

House looked two parts flustered and two parts bewildered. _What the hell did the cafeteria people put into my Reuben?!_

He led her to his office, making sure that Cameron came inside first before he entered, locking the door and drawing the blinds.

Cameron looked around in his office. Aside from a Spanish guitar hanging on the left side of the wall, hardly anything had changed since she was last here. She turned around when House sat down on the padded reclining chair in the corner. He gestured for her to sit on a chair nearby.

"Anywhere?" she asked him.

"Knock yourself out." House replied.

Cameron decided to sit behind the desk. "So, what's this all about?"

* * *

"Want another one, Cuddy?" Wilson asked his guest. Cuddy nodded, pushing her cup in Wilson's direction. As he filled her cup with the brandy, Wilson mentally asked himself for the fifth time: "How'd I get into this mess?"

The first few minutes of their conversation had been about House and his latest applicant for the vacant post in his department. Wilson heard about the CDC guy running out of the office in a huff; he had just finished looking at his file before he checked the one lying below it.

"Well, how about Dr. Leslie Brunswick?" Wilson asked curiously, shifting his position on the edge of his desk. "Her resume looks impressive."

"She couldn't make it," Cuddy muttered as she paced his office in irritation. "Called my office earlier to tell me that she won't be able to come to the interview because she had a complication with her pregnancy…" Her lower lip wobbled.

_No way!_ But Wilson wanted confirmation.

"What's wrong?" he asked cautiously, standing up.

The next thing he knew, Cuddy was sobbing on his couch. From her incoherent ramblings, he found out that the Dean of Medicine at PPTH was trying to get pregnant by in-vitro fertilization and estrogen injections. The pregnancy kit she bought last night—it really was for her. And it showed her that she had failed to conceive again.

He also found out who was giving her those injections. For some reason, knowing that House was helping Cuddy irked the usually unflappable Dr. Wilson.

Wilson knew that alcohol shouldn't be the ultimate cure for one's problems, but in order to calm down Dr. Lisa Cuddy, he had to resort to his "emergency" stash of brandy he managed to hide successfully from House.

Fast forward to right now: Cuddy was on her sixth swig of brandy. Wilson barely touched his glass—someone had to be sober enough to drive her home. When he took a small sip, he noticed that Cuddy was looking at him strangely…

* * *

"You're offering to hire me back at Diagnostics?" Cameron asked him incredulously. She shook her head. "That is not going to work—and no date with you is going to convince me otherwise."

House smirked, "Touché."

He popped two pills into his mouth before standing up, hobbling to his desk and leaning forward, putting his hands on the top of the desk for leverage. He looked threatening, but Cameron didn't flinch. She knows him.

She was about to say something when something flashed in the corner of her eye—a purple something that looked like Cuddy's outfit for today and a striped something.

* * *

_Kind of abrupt. Sorry about this---will make it better in the next chapter. Promise!_


	11. Distractions

Something was distracting Cameron.

At first, House thought Cameron was playing possum—pretending to look at something interesting to make him look. If that had been the case, the woman was putting on quite a convincing act: her round eyes widened the same time her jaw went slack.

Curious, House turned and started to move around his desk. The movement snapped Cameron from her momentary state of catatonia and jumped up from the chair.

"No!"

* * *

Things were heating up in Dr. Wilson's office.

As Cuddy's tongue played hide-and-seek in his mouth, somewhere in his head, the lone voice of reason was clamoring for his attention as it was overwhelmed by his baser instincts. _How did she get you into this position, you patsy?!_

He wasn't sure right now. When soft, delicate hands started snaking up his chest, he couldn't recall what he was trying to remember. When those hands went to explore his back and headed down south, he wondered why Cuddy went to his office in the first place…

* * *

"No?" House asked as Cameron blocked his path towards the glass door to the balcony.

"No," Cameron echoed. She placed a hand on the top of the desk and a hand on a shelf opposite it, effectively anchoring herself and blocking House's progress to the door.

"Why not?" House asked, leaning on his cane and staring straight into her eyes. Her face was calm, but the slight tension along her jaw said something else.

"Because—I remembered something," Cameron said, feeling incredibly lame for a heartbeat or two until something inspired her. "I need a second opinion about Christopher!" _That ought to work, Allison!_

He stiffened. Cameron saw something in his eyes that made her stop breathing for a while. Then she recalled her conversations with Cartwright and Chase, and she pushed some more buttons.

It's not about saving face for Wilson anymore.

"Cartwright thinks Chris might need distraction osteogenesis to lengthen his leg…" she began.

For the first time since Cameron came back to Princeton-Plainsboro, they were talking about their son. The old rapport between them—of department head and department fellow—returned effortlessly. The only difference is their involvement with the patient.

This time, House wasn't going to take radical chances with his son.

* * *

Somebody was looking inside House's office from a safe distance.

Foreman had returned to the hospital after realizing that he left an important package in the conference room. He felt sheepish—after weeks of careful planning, his date didn't end quite as expected when he patted his blazer and pants for the long, slim box and remembered that he didn't fetch it from the desk drawer in the conference room.

He was glad his footsteps didn't make too much noise along the hallway.

Foreman had no idea how long House and Cameron were in the office, but he was sure that they were talking about Christopher. Cameron clapped her hands to her mouth six times already and House looked like someone sneaked some pickles into his Reuben.

_Damn_, Foreman thought, rubbing his forehead in vexation. He was torn in two with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he felt that it was about time House concerned himself with his son. Chase—that ever-reliable tattletale—had told him about Christopher's prognosis and Cameron's worry. Perhaps now that Cameron dropped this on his plate, House's daredevil tactics with patient care would be curbed.

Foreman's other worry was for Cameron. Despite his momentary lapse of sensitivity during the medical article debacle, he did care.

After watching the office for several more minutes, Foreman turned around. He'll get Wendy's necklace from the desk in the morning.

He stopped walking after the fifth step, hearing someone open a door. The door closed, and footsteps resounded sharply across the linoleum. Whoever it was must be walking across the other side.

Foreman raised an eyebrow as he saw a flustered Dr. Cuddy reach the elevators.

_Whose office did she leave?_ he wondered as Cuddy adjusted her rumpled purple blouse and ran a hand through her messy, curly hair.

* * *

_Thoughts?_


	12. Two Men versus a baby

**Two men versus a baby**

**Apologies for the delay in updating...this chapter goes out to the readers who wants to see vengeance and more of Christopher James.**

**

* * *

**Christopher is now seven months old. At an age when babies were mastering the art of crawling, Christopher was stuck with a physical therapist who helped develop his affected leg three times a week. 

His parents—yes, both of them—were relieved when they found that Christopher would be spared from undergoing distraction osteogenesis. According to Dr. Landers, "The only thing that was keeping this baby from developing normally was that band around his leg. You noticed that since he had the operation, his right leg is catching up."

"I did," Cameron said in relief, hugging her baby close to her. Christopher happily babbled incoherently, waving his miniature version of Gravedigger in his right hand.

Landers continued, "His wound has healed nicely." She playfully snatched Gravedigger from Christopher's clutches, waving it a tiny distance away from him for a few seconds before Christopher lunged for his toy and began to bite it. "And it hasn't affected him in the least. He's a very lucky little guy. Fast healer, too."

She reached out and tousled her patient's curly auburn hair, which now spilled over his ears and the collar of his Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Landers chuckled and opened Christopher file.

"No trouble with the weight gain, Dr. Cameron?" she asked.

"Only when he was recuperating from the operation up until last month," Cameron replied, nuzzling her son's neck and breathing in his baby scent. "Next thing I knew, he got his appetite back with a vengeance!"

Cameron chuckled. Landers smiled knowingly.

"Have you started him on the formula?" the pediatrician asked, writing down something in Christopher's file while waiting for an answer.

Cameron sighed, shifted the baby in her arms and looked into his fantastic blue eyes; those same eyes crinkled up before their owner began to giggle. "It was tough, but he got used to the bottle, eventually. He's also starting on semi-solid foods, too."

"That's wonderful!" Dr. Landers replied elatedly. Cameron gave the pediatrician a half-smile. _You have no idea_.

* * *

_A month ago…_

Two men were arguing as they walked up towards the charming little house in the suburbs of New Jersey on a Saturday morning.

"Again, what's with the not telling me part, Wilson?" House whined, limping past his friend to reach the door and pressing down on the doorbell repeatedly. Wilson caught up to House, stopped the older man from pressing on the doorbell, and produced a set of keys from his pocket with which he calmly unlocked the door.

"Christopher is my godson," Wilson said, opening the door and walking through it before letting his friend hobble through. "Cameron needed help while he's recovering from the operation, and I needed to share rent with someone now that Julie has found an attack dog in a new divorce attorney and wants my soul and other material assets, despite the fact that she's the one who committed the adultery this time around."

Wilson let House digest that while he closed the door behind them. From somewhere inside the house, Cameron called out, "Wilson, did you bring House with you?"

House was startled. "Wow—three weeks living with you, and she's developed super-hearing! What else is she developing—X-ray vision?"

"Motherhood tends to give women exceptional gifts," Wilson said dryly as Cameron's footsteps were heard clicking on the parquet floor. "In Cameron's case, she knows I don't ring the doorbell like an immature teenager when I get home."

Wilson turned around as a disheveled Cameron appeared inside the living room, holding a grumpy-looking and pale Christopher in her arms. Mother and son looked like they lost the battle with the formulated milk; Cameron's forehead and nose was covered with the pale yellow powder and Christopher's bib and light green stretchy suit was encrusted with dried milk.

Cameron smiled briefly in greeting at Wilson before eyeing House with daggers. House moved behind Wilson before lightly saying, "Tie?"

"To strangle you with?" Cameron snapped. "I wish!"

Christopher whimpered and stretched against his mother. Cameron looked down at her son and said softly, "No sweetie—Dr. Landers said you have to take to the formula."

Wilson sighed. "Still doesn't want it? Gee, wonder where that streak of stubbornness came from?"

Two pairs of eyes turned to their guest, who stuck out his lower lip and shrugged: "Environmental?"

"Genetics is more likely," Cameron muttered, turning towards the kitchen as Christopher started yowling. Wilson and House followed.

"What's wrong with _your_ milk?" House asked loudly as he and Wilson entered the cozy kitchen. Cameron strapped her bawling son on the baby carrier that was in the middle of the kitchen table before facing House.

"I'm running out," Cameron said dully, "and Christopher needs more sustenance if he's to recuperate fully from the operation." She turned to the bottle sterilizer that was placed a small distance away from the baby carrier. "Before I can start Christopher on semi-solid foods, I have to wean him from my milk. But he's not taking the transition very well so far."

Barely had she taken a new bottle out of the sterilizer that she began to cry. Wilson moved forward and opened his arms out to her; Cameron wilted into his open arms.

"Tell you what, Cameron," Wilson said in a soothing tone, turning around slightly to give House a meaningful look. House's eyes bulged; he began to move backward slowly…

**vv**

_Thirty minutes later…_

A freshly showered and dressed Cameron looked dubiously at Christopher's new caretakers. She had reason to doubt their capability—well, one of them, at least.

"Are you sure you guys are going to be all right?" Cameron asked loudly over Christopher's intensified wails.

Wilson nodded as he rocked his godson back and forth in his arms. House looked like he swallowed a giant pickle; Wilson exaggerated his baby rocking so that his elbow sharply poked House's arm, provoking the older man's "Yeah".

Cameron was not reassured; she turned to Wilson and gave him a wide-eyed look of apprehension. Wilson gave her a brisk nod and a "We'll be fine."

The doorbell rang.

"Call me if something comes up, ok?" Cameron said. She ran up to Wilson and gave an irate Christopher a quick peck on the forehead. "_Please_ take in some formula, honey! Mommy will be home soon."

Then she leveled a look at House. "I'm holding you to our bargain, House. If you don't help Wilson encourage Christopher to drink his formula, I'm not going back to work for you."

Cameron picked up her purse and walked towards the door. "Good luck."

**vv**

_Ten minutes after Cameron left…_

"I give up!" House cried, flopping down on the sofa and draping the rest of his 6-foot-2 frame on the furniture.

Across the living room, Wilson looked like he was ready to drop as well—and from the scowl directed in his friend's direction, he was also considering dropping a dirty diaper on his head.

Christopher still hadn't stopped crying since his mother left. Looking down at the baby, Wilson wondered where the little guy got the stamina to continue with his racket if he was getting less nourishment from Cameron.

"I say we take Nemo there to Cuddy and give her a crash course on motherhood," House growled from the couch. Wilson swallowed and turned away from House, hoping that he didn't catch him turning red at the mention of Cuddy.

_Good grief, man!_ Wilson chided mentally to himself. _What are you, in high school?!_

After walking Christopher around the house—with the double intention of cooling off and distracting the baby—Wilson's cellphone rang. He awkwardly balanced the baby in his arms to see who was calling him. The name flashing on the LCD made Wilson react oddly.

He walked swiftly towards House and deposited Christopher on his stomach.

"You've got babysitting duty for now, _Dad_," Wilson barked at a speechless and outraged House, who hefted himself into a sitting position as he viewed Wilson's progress from the living room to the front door. "It's the hospital—emergency. I'll be back as soon as I can. There's food in the fridge in case I get home late; the baked macaroni is good for another trip to the microwave—and make sure Chris gets his formula!"

The door slammed behind Wilson before House could say anything.

**vv**

Wilson drove quickly to the direction of PPTH, then turned off into another direction. The sleek silver Toyota entered a suburb and parked in front of a charming white house with some ivy framing the front. He turned his car into this house's driveway behind a black Mercedez Benz, pulled the brakes and killed the engine. As he got out of his car, he noticed that a slender, curvaceous form sheathed in a purple robe and crowned with black hair has emerged from the house.

Lisa Cuddy gave Wilson a sexy, languorous smile, stretching out a slim arm as he walked towards her. Wilson took her hand into his, threading their fingers together before allowing himself to be pulled into her arms for some enthusiastic lip action.

As she pulled her lover into her house, she asked, "Are you sure it's safe to leave Christopher with House, James?"

Wilson quickly closed the space between them to nuzzle his nose with hers before replying, "He'll live; I recalled Mrs. House telling me how her son managed to coax a malnourished baby to feed…"

"I'll buy that," Cuddy cut in, shifting her face to bring Wilson's lips to hers.

**vv**

_Meanwhile…_

"Damn it!" House yelled as Christopher squalled just as indignantly after he eluded the tip of the bottle aimed at his pink mouth.

House was seriously contemplating calling Cameron back. He was about to whip his cellphone out of his pocket when a foul smell assaulted his senses. Looking down at his charge, he noticed how Christopher seemed to be concentrating very hard.

"Shit!" he hissed, putting the baby and the full bottle down on the middle of the couch as he whipped out his Vicodin bottle…

**vv**

_Two Vicodin pills later…_

House was able to maintain consciousness as he finished removing Christopher's diaper in the baby's room. After disposing the offensive thing into the proper receptacle, he turned to attempt to clean off the baby's rump on the changing table when he felt something warm and wet hit his chest.

House stood stock still until the trickle died out before glaring down at his relieved-looking son. For once, the baby looked calm and angelic (if one can ignore the reddened eyes) as he looked up at his irate and grossed out sire. House took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"Bad baby," he muttered, looking into his son's eyes and trying not to grin. "Good aim."

House took off his shirt—which was black, _thank God_—then he took off the rest of Christopher's outfit. He awkwardly walked towards the bathroom and turned on the tap in the bathtub. Inside the tub, he found an inflated, circular baby bath seat. He was about to place Christopher in the contraption when he took a good look at his son's right leg.

The wound had healed—what used to be a tight, invisible band under the knee was now a very strange-looking, very red scar, almost looking like an exaggerated letter Z. He lowered his son until they were looking at each other in the eye.

"M'laaaaaah," Christopher said loudly, flailing his good leg wildly while the scarred leg just swung back and forth.

"Right," House said curtly, lowering his baby into the inflatable seat carefully.

**vv**

Ignoring the bum leg, cleaning up a six-month-old baby was a cinch. He wrapped Christopher in a large Blue's Clues towel like a burrito, with his cherubic face peeking out, and placed him inside his crib. House checked out the contents of a large chest and unearthed a red stretchy suit with "The Incredibles" logo on the right. He laid these out on the changing table and went to fetch Christopher from the crib.

"I have to talk to your mother about getting you some appropriate attire," House told Christopher. "How are you going to pick up chicks wearing Mickey Mouse Works?"

He unwrapped his son from the towel and proceeded to dust him from neck to toes with talcum powder. After putting on the diaper and the stretchy suit on Christopher, House picked him up and inspected his handiwork.

Frowning, House tested Christopher's weight by carefully hoisting him up, then down. "We have to fatten you up, Nemo."

"Mwaaaaaah," Christopher replied.

**vv**

Cameron arrived at the house at 6:00 PM. She spent a relaxing day at the spa in the mall, splurging on some massages and other treats for the body and soul. With that done, she killed some time at a bookstore and sipped some frappuccino at a café. To assuage any feelings of guilt at leaving House and Wilson at the mercy of hurricane Christopher, Cameron also bought some Chinese fast food.

Upon disembarking from the cab, she became aware of two things: Wilson's car was not in the driveway, and the lights were out.

Heart pumping fast and lugging her purchases tightly in her hands, Cameron ran to the front door. She dropped her purchases and frantically searched her purse for the keys. It took her racing mind a moment to register the classical music playing softly through the door.

Bewildered, Cameron managed to find her keys and unlock her front door. She groped the wall to turn on the lights, lugged her bags in, and shut the door behind her.

The music seemed to be coming from her bedroom.

Leaving her purchases on the floor, Cameron tiptoed to her bedroom, opened the door, turned on the lights—and dropped her jaw.

Sprawled on her queen-sized bed, with Christopher dozing and drooling on his chest, was a topless House. Beside House were three empty bottles, which evidently once contained milk formula.

* * *

_About the baby seat: I saw one on a Ripley's: Believe it or Not! episode._

_Thoughts?_


	13. Itchy gums

**Almost done...

* * *

**

A humming Cameron pushed Christopher's stroller out of Dr. Landers' office. Lying back in the stroller, Christopher was gnawing madly at a large red lollipop.

Two perky young interns were heading towards them. The Asian girl nudged her African-American companion and nodded in Christopher's direction. They started squealing behind their clipboards.

"Oh, looky at the cute widdle baby!!!" the Asian girl gushed. She looked up at Cameron and said, "He such a cutie! How old is he?"

A proud Cameron announced, "Seven months and three days. He's 20 pounds, 3 ounces, in case you're wondering."

"Cool," the African-American intern piped in. The two girls leaned over and started cooing at the baby. Christopher stopped gnawing at his lollipop to stare at them for a minute, then he resumed worrying his two front teeth and sore gums on the lollipop.

"Aw, he's teething," the Asian girl observed.

Cameron nodded, fighting off a grin.

--

_Last month_

Cameron carefully turned around and left the room, keeping the door open in case Christopher or House wakes up. She went to the kitchen and placed her purchases on the table top.

On the way, she noticed that the answering machine had some messages. The first one had been played already.

"_House, its me,_" Wilson's voice resonated from the machine. "_Something came up with the—uh—patient. Might come in later. Call Cameron and tell her for me, 'k? Don't wait up._"

A quirk with this answering machine—Cameron's and Wilson's busy lives didn't offer them time to go out and get a new one—made the newest message play later. When Cameron heard the soft, familiar female voice, her throat went dry.

--

The first thing Christopher registered upon waking up was the music playing in the background.

He yawned and blinked, licking his pink lips noisily. He rubbed his drool-covered face on the wide expanse of bare, hairy chest he had slept on and yawned again. He felt something itch and hurt in his gums. Instinct told him that to relieve himself of this discomfort, he had to rub his gums on something—anything.

Christopher rubbed his small hands on the expanse of roughness, delighting in this new texture. The chest rumbled, and the man who took care of him started to make sounds of amusement, not waking. Fascinated, Christopher rubbed his hands on the chest again—and discovered a nipple…

--

Edgy after listening to the second message on the answering machine, Cameron took the time to digest the information she received from it and set out the plates and silverware. She was about to unpack the Chinese take-out when she heard House yowl in a mixture of surprise and disgust from her bedroom. Coming in a close second was Christopher's cry of fright.

Alarmed, Cameron dropped the carton of noodles and ran to the bedroom. House was standing, favoring his good leg and holding a traumatized Christopher in his arms, trying to soothe him.

"_What did you do to my baby, House?!_" Cameron bit out. She strode over to Christopher and snatched him away from his father.

"ME?!" House said indignantly. He raised a right hand to his left pectoral and rubbed it. "I just slept on your bed after feeding Nemo the Horrible there. He thanked me by covering me with drool and turning on my…well, he bit me!"

"Bit you?!" Cameron thundered. Christopher wailed even louder, and Cameron took the moment to calm herself by comforting her son, rubbing his sturdy back and lowering his head to the crook of her neck. "Where _did_ he bite you?"

"Uh…"

Anger dissolved into shock as Cameron finally took in House massaging his left pectoral. The shock lasted for five seconds and escaped Cameron as peals of hysterical laughter. Christopher looked up at his mother before turning to look at House. His father looked at his son wryly, sighed, then he limped away from the scene towards Cameron's closet.

"The sooner he gets weaned," he muttered loudly, turning on the light and rummaging around for a towel, "the better."

--

After Cameron and Christopher calmed down, House was handed a t-shirt of Wilson's to wear during dinner. His soiled t-shirt was tumbling in the washing machine while they ate. Cameron fed her son from a bottle, delighted at how much he consumed, as she listened to House explain—or exaggerate—how he managed to coax the baby into feeding from the bottle.

"…before I gave up and attempted to take him for a ride on my bike…"

"Then I'd have killed you," Cameron butted in, glaring at House, who didn't buckle at the look thrown his way.

"…I took him into your room and played some CDs on it. He started guzzling on the first bottle after listening to the third singer—Nat King Cole. My son's got taste."

House paused here and finished off his Peking duck. Cameron beamed down at her son, who had already finished his bottle and was now using his gums to pull on the plastic nipple.

"He's also teething—or he thinks your nipple produces milk, too," Cameron muttered, raising her son up in order to hide her smirk and shakes of mirth. House glared at his son, who smiled back at him.

--

After dinner, Cameron stuffed House's shirt into the dryer while he bathed Christopher. The baby was handed over to his mother, wrapped tightly in his towel. Cameron glowered at House.

"What is he, an Eskimo?" Cameron muttered as she unwrapped her son.

"It's nighttime—he might get cold!" House explained.

Cameron snorted and finished dressing up her son in a dark green sleep suit with feet. By the time she combed his hair, Christopher was yawning. He fell asleep minutes later.

Meanwhile, House left for the laundry room. The dryer was finished with his shirt, and he was in the process of removing Wilson's McGill t-shirt (it fitted him rather snugly) when Cameron approached him from behind.

"Can we talk?" she asked softly.

House turned around to her, the shirt stuck halfway off him around the shoulders. Cameron fought off a giggle.

"Only if you help me take off this shirt," House said. "And no nipple-nipping while you're at it!"

"Me, a nipple-nipper?" Cameron asked derisively as she walked closer to House and helped him take off the shirt. "If I recall, you were doing most of the 'nipping'…"

Cameron stalled as House removed the shirt.

She visually lapped up the view:

Wide shoulders, wide chest covered in dark hairs, trailing a path down south over well-defined abdominals.

Muscular arms, nicely veined—proof of the man's former prowess as a sportsman.

Skin—good Lord…so much visual.

And it was getting closer…

--

Wilson arrived at the house at around 11:15 PM. The adjective "glowing" would be the best to describe this member of the gender, who was humming as he parked the car and locked it.

Fibbing about going to work to have the longest, most satisfying quickie with Lisa Cuddy—life can't get any worse for James Wilson. Well, there was that problem of Julie and her pit-bull lawyer, but Wilson pushed that uncomfortable thought in the back of his mind, savoring the moment of satisfaction.

When he opened the lights, the first things he saw were two pairs of underpants outside Cameron's bedroom door: a pair of panties and boxers. Wilson's feeling of euphoria dimmed and escalated when he found more articles of men's and women's clothing making a trail from the bedroom to the laundry room.

"About time," Wilson whispered.

He turned off the light and walked towards the answering machine. He pressed play and listened to the remaining message on the machine:

"_James, its Blythe—Blythe House. John and I will be flying in from Springfield on Greg's birthday, around 3 in the afternoon. Will you come pick us up? I can't take all this silly secrecy—what's all this about?_"


	14. Meet the Grandparents

Cameron took Christopher into a nearby restroom in order to change his diaper. The two interns they ran into immediately commented on the rank smell that wafted into their sinuses while they went gaga over the baby.

After taking baby wipes, a clean baby-sized shirt and a fresh diaper out of the bag, she set up the baby changing station and placed Christopher on it. She peeled off the Mickey Mouse t-shirt and replaced it with the navy blue Baby Guess t-shirt.

As she finished fixing up Christopher's clothes, Cameron mused at Blythe House's generosity when a large box filled with baby clothes was delivered last week…

--

_Two weeks ago_

Cameron's return to the Department of Diagnostics was officially celebrated at the new flat shared by Foreman and his new girlfriend, a cute blond nurse named Wendy. House and Wilson were also invited to the late afternoon shindig, which was approved by Cuddy after the team successfully treated the autistic boy, Dominic, of Baylisascaris.

It was also House's month-long anniversary as a nightly guest at Cameron and Wilson's house. Cameron was thankful that Wilson decided not to comment whenever she and House disappeared into her room. After all, she didn't comment much about Wilson's impromptu visits to Cuddy's house.

The doorbell rang relentlessly, signaling the arrival of the remaining two people invited to the impromptu party. When Chase answered the door, only House stood on the other side.

"What happened to Wilson?" Chase asked.

"He stood me up," House said, pouting and widening his blue eyes for effect as he entered the flat. He stood in the middle of the living room, raised his cane like a prophet of doom, and loudly declared, "Let it be known that James Wilson stood me up! I will **never** understand men!"

"Hear, hear!" Wendy and Cameron yelled behind him. Chase snorted loudly when House pretended to flip his hair and announced, "I'm a lesbian from now on!"

Cameron tried not to notice as House fixed her with a lecherous eyebrow-raising when he made that "announcement".

Foreman sat next to his girlfriend, rolling his eyes as he chugged a bottle of Budweiser. Wendy had Christopher in her lap; the baby wore a bright yellow shirt with a blue monster truck in the front, a pair of baby-sized jeans, and tiny red-and-white sneakers. His mother sat next to Wendy, looking at the outfit from time to time with a strange expression on her face. It had been there since House offered to dress up Christopher that morning.

--

_That morning…_

"What—where'd you get this?" Cameron demanded after she rediscovered the power of speech.

"This?" House asked, lifting Christopher high in the air; Christopher squealed and drooled all over his plastic red donut. "Got it from www dot GRAVEDIGGER dot com. Makes him look manlier than putting him in those _baby clothes_."

Cameron's eyes widened as she took her baby from House's clutches. "That's because he _is _a baby! What else did you buy him? A trucker cap? A beer bottle-shaped pacifier?"

"Now that you mentioned it…"

In the kitchen, Wilson snorted into his waffles.

--

House took his place next to Cameron. Christopher had elected to return to her lap and was now trying to grab the business end of the beer bottle she was holding.

"That's the spirit, Nemo!" House said in a deep, gravelly Texan voice. "Chug some beer—it'll grow some hair on your chest!" To Cameron: "Told you that shirt will make a man out of him; Disney and Nickelodeon were turning him into a wuss!"

Cameron gave House an exasperated look before successfully wrestling the bottle from Christopher's grasp. The baby gave a shrill cry of protest until House showed him the handle of his cane. Christopher immediately stopped crying and grabbed the cane with both chubby hands.

"_Nemo_?" Wendy asked, looking in amusement as Christopher tried to lift up the cane.

Cameron shrugged and nodded towards House. House pretended to mull it over, rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out for emphasis. Wendy chuckled; Christopher was now moving the cane from side to side, cooing.

House finally answered: "What can I say? I'm a sucker for touchy-feely father and son fish stories…"

--

_Meanwhile…_

Wilson unlocked the door to the house he rented with Cameron and wedged a doorstop under it.

"You go on in, Mrs. House," Wilson said. "I'll go help Mr. House with the bags."

"Thank you, James," Blythe House replied, squeezing Wilson's hand in gratitude before entering the house. "Honestly, you didn't have to offer to set us up here at your house to surprise—oh!"

Wilson and John House appeared behind her, lugging two suitcases and two carry-on bags. "Blythe, what's wrong?" John asked curtly.

Wilson looked up and winced: he forgot to put away Christopher's playpen from the living room.

John and Blythe turned to him with identical looks of bewilderment.

Blythe was the first to speak, "James—you and Dr. Cameron…?"

"I can explain!"

--

House and Cameron left Foreman's flat two hours later. Christopher was dozing peacefully in his car seat. A scowling House was looking ahead from the passenger side of the car, arms crossed. Cameron was driving, trying to concentrate on getting back to the house and not dwell on something aside from the noxious smell of barf—something niggling at her conscience. All four windows in Cameron's Tucson Blue were partially open to let the air circulate during the trek home.

"The kid really has it in for me, hasn't he?" House grumbled.

"Oh, he does not," Cameron chided, relieved that House broke the silence this time. "It's just that he's got excellent timing where you're concerned."

"Timing?! He's been planning on throwing up at _me_ ever since Chase started feeding him poisoned pastry."

Cameron shook her head, grinning. "The apple pie was not poison; we all ate it…"

"It could be poison for an innocent child!"

"Well, it could also be motion sickness after Foreman gave him that piggyback ride around the living room _after_ Chase fed him some pie."

House huffed and turned around to look at Christopher, still sleeping in the back seat.

"All right—FOREMAN and CHASE have it in for me…"

_Add Wilson and Cameron to your list, Greg_, Cameron thought wryly. _I wonder if Wilson remembered to put the playpen away._

--

The next turn of events happened in slow motion when House and Cameron walked through the front door, with a half-awake Christopher draped across his mother's shoulder.

At least, it was for House…

First: Blythe said in greeting, "Happy Birthday, Greg! Oh, good Lord, what happened to your shirt?!"

House replied, "Went into an argument with a midget—the midget won."

Next thing he heard: "Oh—oh my goodness!"

Four different people cried out:

"Blythe!"

"Mom!"

"Mrs. House!" (Wilson and Cameron)

Last: Christopher began to cry.

--

Cuddy called Wilson that night.

The moment Wilson answered, Cuddy lost no time in interrogating him. "So, how did it go?"

"I missed you too," Wilson replied dryly. Cuddy smiled and waited for Wilson's answer.

"Mrs. House had the benefit of having three doctors coming to her aid after taking a good look at Christopher."

"Whoa."

"It's like she saw a ghost."

"I can't say I blame the poor woman."

"I'm—not going to comment on that."

"And?"

"Well, we revived Mrs. House, Mr. House nearly tore up my eardrums with demands for answers, and House left Cameron and me to do some explaining while House changed into one of my shirts."

"Why'd he change shirts?"

"Christopher puked on him."

Cuddy snorted with laughter. "Bet he just loved that. Remind me to give Cameron a gift certificate at Toys R Us within this week."

Wilson grinned on his end of the line. "Sure thing. Look, can I take a rain check on our 'meeting' tonight. Someone has to make sure that House and his dad won't kill each other…"

"Okay," Cuddy said softly. "Good luck with that."

She had decided to inform Wilson tomorrow.

--

"He still has his mother's name."

It was the first thing John House said the moment Greg emerged from the bathroom. House had changed back into his freshly laundered shirt after fetching it from the dryer.

"That's funny," Greg answered in a flat voice. "I thought his name was Christopher, not Allison."

"Don't be smart with me, Greg…"

"What, you want me to play dumb?"

"That's enough!"

The two House men turned around at Blythe's sharp tone of voice. She was carrying Christopher in her arms, who had stopped gnawing at his favorite red plastic donut when the voices of his father and grandfather began to escalate.

"Let it go, John," Blythe said in a tired voice. She shifted Christopher in her arms and placed two fingers on John's lips when he attempted to speak. "It's up to Greg and Allison now—let them work it out for themselves."

"But—"

"If it is up to us, we'll do it. This time, let them work it out. After all, they are Christopher's parents."

John stared into Blythe's eyes and looked into his grandson's face before he huffed and turned away.

House waited until his father left the vicinity to look at his mother.

"Do I need to marry Cameron to make this all better?"

Blythe sighed and lifted Christopher up until she was looking into eyes identical to hers and Greg's. "We're in the 21st century now, Greg; it's a different world today. I'd like to think that I'm open-minded about these things, but I'd also like to be assured that you'll give me more grandchildren after Christopher."

She kissed Christopher on the forehead and left cheek before handing him over to House. Blythe then reached out to take her son's face between graceful hands—House had to bend over in order to look at her in the eye—and said, "Fix this, and don't mess this up."

Mother and son grinned while Christopher looked on.

--

_A/N: I played around with the timeline a bit—Foreman and Wendy and the kid with raccoon worms—as well as Cuddy's leniency. Chalk the last one up to Wilson's "visitations". Plus, I have no idea what I just did with the timeline in this fic. Curse this caffeine withdrawal!_


	15. Converse

_A/N: The gap between this chapter and the last chapter was brought to you by events beyond my control and selective writer's block. I know I've been jumping back and forth from "past" to "present". I'd like to assure the possibly confounded reader that I had—er—HAVE a reason for that. I also have to apologize for a timeline mistake in the last chapter. This chapter, unlike the three before it, continues from the flashback._

_House is a product of David Shore, et al._

* * *

While House and Blythe had their heart-to-heart, Cameron went to the laundry room. She had been standing on the other end of the hallway when Mr. House confronted his son. She turned away when Greg asked his mother, "Do I have to marry Cameron to make this all better?"

Inside the small room, she leaned over and pressed her palms down on the dryer.

She dared not hope. She reserved that for Christopher, because it was all she would allow.

Cameron stopped hoping for herself the moment she heard _her_ name uttered the night Christopher was conceived. Since then, she stopped giving too much hope to patients and started giving them the facts. It was the only thing that worked when all of Wilson's remonstrance and House's litanies have failed; after leaving his employ, Dr. Allison Cameron finally became the doctor who met almost all of House's requirements.

And this "sleeping arrangement" with him? It had been all sex—very satisfying, mind-gutting sex—and then sleep. By unspoken agreement, personal issues were left on the other side of her bedroom door. Outside it, they only discussed work, Christopher, hospital gossip, and once, House's suspicions about Wilson's frequent night trips to the hospital.

The door opened. Cameron straightened up and turned around, then had to lean against the dryer as House entered the cramped, rectangular room. Cameron made to move sideways for the door, but House stretched his left arm and blocked the way. He only moved his arm when he closed the door behind him.

Cameron didn't wait for House to provide an opening. "Where's Christopher?" she asked him.

"He's with the folks," he replied, jerking his head to indicate the living room. "I assigned Wilson to be his bodyguard."

"House!" Cameron chided. "I know you have issues with your dad, but—"

House's snort interrupted her. "Not him: my mom! She's gone nuts. I have feeling she's going take Nemo with her to New Zealand tomorrow morning if we're not careful."

Despite herself, Cameron grinned. After recovering from her fainting spell, Blythe House became enamored of her newfound grandson. She practically demanded that she would clean up Christopher and change him, despite protests from Wilson and Cameron. House, who made the mistake of returning from Wilson's room after scrounging around for a fresh t-shirt, was promptly scolded by Blythe for failing to do his duty and inform her that she had become a grandmother.

"Let's go to my place."

Cameron blinked. She hadn't been conscious of spacing out. Or of House massaging her tense shoulders—damned talented hands he has.

"What about your folks? And—"

"Wilson can handle all three of them; he was born to be a hostess."

Cameron couldn't control her giggles.

"And I think my mom has already shown you a sample of her super powers. How do you think she survived being married to my dad all these years?"

--

It did seem like Blythe has super powers: she didn't comment much when, in the middle of dinner, House informed the small gathering that he and Cameron had to go back to the hospital to check on a patient. On previous visits, she would cajole her son into spending time with her and John, even if it was for a few minutes as House had patients to attend to.

"They're needed, John," Blythe said, cutting off whatever Mr. House was about to say to his son. Wilson took over feeding Christopher, whose face was smeared with half the mashed vegetables that missed his mouth, and murmured, "Good luck" to the departing couple.

The ride to House's flat took minutes. House navigated the streets with ease, ignoring the squeezing around his middle whenever he encountered sharp corners or overtook other vehicles.

They finally arrived at the flat. Cameron felt like her innards were getting tied into knots; she hadn't been to this place for more than a year. She almost didn't register that her companion had already gone up the stairs leading to the front door.

"Are you coming?" House asked loudly.

"Yeah," she replied and started moving.

The flat didn't seem to have changed a whit the last time Cameron had been here. The piano was still in the same corner, though the guitar hanging on the wall behind it looked new (it didn't have the rainbow shoulder strap like the one before, and the color of the instrument was darker). The shelves and coffee table still held assorted books, medical texts, and exotic-looking knickknacks. Cameron walked further into the living room and looked around as House dropped his motorcycle jacket on the leather sofa and lumbered into the kitchen.

"Didn't you have a rat?" Cameron asked as she removed her jacket.

"I did," House replied from behind the refrigerator door. He straightened up and offered her a bottle of beer.

Cameron moved towards him and accepted the bottle. "Well, where you keep him?"

House opened his bottle with a Budweiser bar blade and handed the device to her. "The flower box over there," he finally answered, cocking his head to the side to indicate its location. House would have let that explanation suffice until he saw the look of horror on Cameron's face. "Steve McQueen died of natural causes," he exclaimed, hobbling past her to enter the living room. "I looked in on his cage one day and there he was, legs sticking up in the air and his tongue lolling out of his mouth."

Cameron just took a sip of beer and followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. One thing was certain when she sat next to House on the sofa:

This was it.

In actuality, "it" took minutes to start. Awkwardness settled in, and all they did in the interim was to finish off their beers for as long as possible. Cameron wondered how it was possible that having sex with the man next to her was easier than talking to him all of a sudden.

"Screwing around was easier than this," House suddenly muttered, bending over to place his empty bottle on the coffee table. He leaned back and looked at Cameron; for one moment, the look House was giving her made him look so many years younger. She felt his fingers thread through hers until he fully grasped her hand. He looked at her, opened his mouth, then looked down at their entwined fingers.

"I'm not very good at this."

Cameron started to look at their hands, not trusting herself to speak. House moved his free hand and covered the rest of her hand with it.

"I really don't remember much about that night," he continued, still focusing his gaze on her hands. "If I did, we might have fixed this earlier, and you wouldn't—I would have been there when Nemo was born."

House looked at Cameron; she hadn't flinched or reacted. She still kept looking at their hands.

He continued: "What I said, I can't take it back—I don't remember it, remember?"

Cameron tried not to react, but she could not stop her hands from twitching.

"But I can tell you this: Stacy and I are over. We're through."

Cameron whispered, still not daring to look at him: "You said her name...you slept with her..."

She didn't see House make a face as he sputtered, "I—ah—well, YOU slept with Chase!"

Cameron whipped around to look at House, eyes flashing. "I was high! What's your excuse?"

"Sheeeeeeeeeeee's a lawyer!"

"Bullshit!"

Cameron attempted to remove her hand from his clutches, but House had the advantage of larger hands and a longer reach. He pulled her towards him, locking her in a tight embrace.

"How dare you," she snarled as she struggled furiously against House's hold on her, "compare what happened between me and Chase to you and HER! Unlike us, you two had a HISTORY! She was married, and you fucked her, then you fucked me and you thought you were fucking her and now you're fucking me all over again...!"

He kept silent, letting Cameron release the bile she had stored up all this time. He had to give her the opportunity to get it all out. When Cameron started winding down and sobbed, he stroked her back and cleared his throat.

"I know I've been a prime asshole—I've been building my rep long before I met you," he said in a low voice. "But unlike some assholes, I know when I've gone overboard and I know when there's something worth saving. I do work on making it worth it."

He released Cameron, enough to tilt her head up and look at her. Her eyes were red and swimming in tears. He used the pad of his thumb to brush away the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You made me feel like shit when you left, worse than when Stacy left the first time. I don't want that again—no feeling like shit or Stacy. I want to save this thing we've got. I want to be part of your life and Nemo's."

House left it right there. Cameron looked at him for a long time before she replied:

"We have a lot of work to do."

--

The lovemaking that followed wasn't as mind-gutting as before, but it was more, much more, and that alone exhausted them and made them feel more sated.

Cameron curled up against House, almost asleep, when he nuzzled her ear and asked, "How long have Wilson and Cuddy been screwing around?"

* * *

**Hope to follow-up ASAP. :)**


	16. Rolling Stone

Disclaimer: House, MD is the property of Fox.

A/N: The story now continues in the "present". Many thanks to those who stuck with this multi-chapter fic from the beginning, and apologies for the HUGE delays in-between the last few chapters. Despite the revelation of Cameron's true hair color in Season 4, I'm going to stick with the hair color I've associated with her in Seasons past (and to keep to the storyline).

* * *

When she was done dressing up Christopher, Cameron gently disentangled his little fingers from her long hair and gave him a bottle and a quick kiss on the forehead. She placed him in the stroller and secured him before tidying up the baby changing station in the ladies' room. Once she was done, she tucked the diaper bag under the stroller, washed and dried her hands, and pushed on out of there. 

She headed for the elevators and punched the "up" button. When the doors opened, she and Christopher entered. It was only when she reached out to press the floor number that she realized that Cuddy was inside it; Cameron didn't see the Dean leaning in the left corner of the elevator car.

"Morning, Dr. Cuddy," said Cameron. She leaned in a little closer to Cuddy; the older woman looked a little wan.

"Morning, Dr. Cameron," Cuddy replied, and nothing in her voice suggested fatigue or anything wrong; still strong and decisive. Cuddy looked down, beamed, and added, "And how's my little guy?"

Christopher replied by taking the bottle out of his mouth and belching. Cameron was mortified, but Cuddy just chuckled and shook her head. "Nice one," she said.

There was a "ping!" and the elevator doors opened. Cuddy pressed the "open" button for Cameron and Christopher before getting off herself. The women walked down the length of the hall, making some quick small talk about Christopher.

"Well, I've got to, uh, consult with Wilson about something," Cuddy said as they reached the end of the hallway. She walked in front of Christopher's stroller and bent over to give him a quick peck on a round, pink cheek. Then, to Cameron, "See you around!"

Cameron smiled in response, and when she turned the stroller around to head towards Diagnostics, the smile turned into a smirk.

"Good news?"

Cameron looked up; Chase was approaching her from the other end of the hallway. Christopher reacted by letting out a loud "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Chase chuckled and grinned at the baby when both he and Cameron reached the door to the Conference room.

"Oh, yeah," Cameron replied, chuckling as well. As Chase moved to open the Conference Room door for her, she continued, "He's gaining weight, as he should be; his wound is healing nicely and his leg is finally catching up with the rest of him."

Chase grinned as Cameron passed him. "That's great!" He closed the door and knelt down to look at Christopher in the eye. "Next thing we'll know, he'll be tearing around the Conference room and driving us crazy. Won't you, big guy?"

Christopher replied with a "Heeah!" and pointed his bottle at Chase.

Cameron sighed. "He hasn't started crawling yet."

Chase started crossing his eyes as the baby aimed the bottle at his nose. "Don't sweat it, Cameron," he muttered, without breaking cross-eyed eye contact. "He's not the first baby to start crawling after seven months."

"I know," Cameron murmured, raising a hand to move a strand of hair from her forehead. "The most he does is rock side-to-side when he's on his back. When he's on all fours, he just rolls until he's on his back. Then he starts crying until I come to roll him back."

"Sounds just like his dad," Chase said in a falsely cheerful voice. He puckered up and pretended to accept Christopher's offer of his bottle.

"And so the truth comes out!" boomed a deep voice behind Chase.

Shocked, Chase paused, and Christopher took the opportunity to push the nipple end of the bottle into the stupefied man's mouth. Chase flushed as he removed the bottle from his mouth while Cameron snickered and Christopher guffawed.

House sauntered (best as he could on his cane) over to his son and said, "Good job!"

"Heeyaah," Christopher replied, grinning broadly up at his father.

"House!" Cameron chided, still trying to tone down her giggles. She took the empty bottle from the still-flushed Chase and placed it the diaper bag. House turned to Chase and waved a brown manila envelope in the air, "My baby mommy and I have some serious stuff to discuss. Take care of Nemo for a while."

It wasn't a request. Chase was about to complain, but House cut him off with a, "Or you could take my Clinic hours for two weeks."

Chase just smirked. "Not going to happen; Cuddy will know you made me take your Clinic hours."

House pretended to pause to absorb that. "Okay—I'll take my Clinic hours and page you for a consult whenever a prostrate exam is required…"

The younger man snorted. "Right. Like every Clinic patient is a bloke with STD…"

"Please, Chase," Cameron interjected, eyeing the manila envelope in House's hand. "You can just keep Chris occupied: I just changed his diaper…"

Chase looked at Christopher, absorbed in yanking on the strap that kept him in place in the stroller. "Fine," he grumbled, bending over to free Christopher from his restraint.

"That's sweet of you," House gushed. Then to Cameron, "In my office, pronto! And try to keep it down this time, okay? We're in a hospital!"

Cameron snorted, then handed the diaper bag to Chase. "There's a blanket in there; unroll it on the floor and put Chris on it, please. The PT told me that…"

"Yeah, yeah," Chase replied, rummaging in the bag for the article. Christopher looked up at his parents' retreating backs.

--

In Wilson's office, Cuddy was leaning over the couch, fanning Wilson's ashen face with a patient's folder. Wilson was looking at the ceiling of his office, not really focusing on it. In his left hand was a slip of white paper, tightly rolled in the middle.

Cuddy looked down at him in concern; she stopped fanning him so that she could pick up his wrist and check his pulse. Wilson's mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out.

--

Back in House's office, House motioned for Cameron to draw the blinds while he made his way to his chair and sat down. He placed the manila envelope on top of his glass desk as Cameron turned and walked towards him, eyeing the envelope. House noted that Cameron's face was slightly flushed and expressionless.

"Well, guess what the FedEx man from Samoa brought today," House said lightly. "Good thing I'm the last man to leave the house, or no one would be around to accept it."

Cameron still didn't make a peep or cracked an expression. She kept staring at the envelope as she groped around for a chair and sat down on it.

House made a big show of opening the envelope and extracting the documents within. He gave the papers a cursory glance before looking at Cameron. Cameron shifted her gaze from the papers to House's eyes. Her eyes widened when she took in his surprised expression.

"When?" he asked softly.

Cameron swallowed.

"After—after Chris had his operation, after we talked about the possibility that he might need distraction osteogenesis," she whispered. She started pinching her fingers on her lap. "Wilson's lawyer made a recommendation and—she helped me out."

House glanced at the papers again and stared back at Cameron.

She continued, quickening the pace. "I should have told you about him sooner, but I still remembered what you said that night, and I really didn't know how you'd take it, becoming a father. And I was trying to make it out on my own, trying to prove that I can do it on my own. But then Wilson—he and I met during the christening (and we're not even Catholic)! And I just found out about the amniotic banding on Chris's leg, and Wilson told me about your relapse…"

House set the papers down on the table.

"…and then Christopher was born, and he looked like you, he has your eyes…"

He stood up and walked awkwardly around the table without his cane. Cameron still stared at the spot where she had been looking at House's eyes moments before.

"…and I couldn't, I couldn't keep him from you…I'm sorry!"

Tears slipped down her cheeks. A large, warm, callused hand slipped under her chin and a thumb passed over the apple of her cheek, wiping away the wetness that was trailing a downward path. Cameron looked up and into House's eyes; their faces so close now, the tips of their noses were touching.

House leaned closer to kiss both her cheeks, then her lips. When they finished, he wrapped an arm around Cameron and reached out to take the papers.

He swallowed a few times.

"You need to sign these," he said. "Before 'dash House' can be attached to Nemo's name."

Cameron smiled and wiped away the tears. She was about to reach for a pen when they heard Chase's cry of surprise from the Conference room.

"He's mobile!" he yelled.

Cameron and House looked at each other with identical incredulity on their faces before they jumped (House for his cane). By the time House reached the door, Cameron had entered the Conference room and filled it with her laughter.

He looked at the Conference room floor, where Christopher's blanket was. Chase was on one end of the blanket, and Cameron was kneeling somewhere in the middle of it. Christopher was sitting on his mother's lap, grinning up at his father.

"I heard 'mobile'," House said. "Where's the mobility?"

In response, Cameron picked up Christopher and set him, prostrate, on the blanket. Christopher was still for a moment, and then he pushed himself off the floor and started to roll sideways. Cameron stopped him before he left the protection of the blanket and looked up at House.

"Mobile!"

--

Back in Wilson's office, the phone on his desk started to ring. Cuddy answered it.

"Dr. Wilson's office," she chimed.

"Hey, you sound just like Cuddy!" House cried in mock astonishment from the other end of the line.

"Your powers of observation are mind-boggling, Dr. House," Cuddy said dryly. "Thanks for reminding me why I hired you."

"Always happy to oblige. Now, can I talk to Wilson? Got something monumental to share with him."

"He's indisposed."

There was a pause.

"My GOD, what have you done?" House asked in horror. "Asphyxiated him with your happy cushions?"

"Leave a message, House, and I'll relay it to him later."

"Can't wait. I'll do that voodoo you pay me to do and tell him myself."

"That's not nece—hello? HELLO?"

House had hung up on her.

"James!" she hissed, dropping the phone back on its cradle. She ran to the door and locked it, then rushed to Wilson's side. "James, snap out of it! If House sees you like this, he'll never let you live it down!"

That made Wilson stir just as the door leading to the balcony opened. Cuddy looked up when she felt a draft and groaned.

"I love this connection between doctors!" House gushed, raising his cane to indicate the balcony that connected his office and Wilson's. Then he took in Wilson's state of shock. "So, Cuddy's assets finally overwhelmed you, huh?"

"Least I'm man enough to handle them," Wilson said faintly, now attempting to sit up. "Touching, how you decide to come to my side at this moment."

"Actually, I came to brag about my little rolling stone," said House. He ambled towards Wilson's desk and sat on its edge. "You made a successful deposit in Cuddy's sperm bank, didn't you?"

Wilson started to say something, but he looked at Cuddy and shrugged. Cuddy looked up and down and placed a perfectly manicured hand on her flat stomach.

House nodded in Cuddy's direction. "You're wearing a slightly looser top than usual. And I've seen Wilson like this before, but that resulted in Mrs. Wilson version 2.0 and a benign mass that had to be removed from her hoo-haa."

Wilson and Cuddy glared at him. House ignored them in his fashion and asked, "So—is it legal in this hospital to hand out cigars?"

--

That night, Cameron and House had the house to themselves; Wilson decided to spend the night at Cuddy's place. Cameron and House were in her bedroom, sitting on opposite sides of the queen-sized bed and watching Christopher roll his way back and forth between them.

"You make me want to hurl, kid," House grumbled as Christopher rolled towards him for the third time. He held out his hands to stop Christopher's progress; he caught the baby's back and was rewarded with a wide smile and deep dimples on soft ruddy cheeks.

"I'm amazed all that rolling didn't make _him_ want to hurl," Cameron said in awe. She tilted her head to the side as House attempted to position Christopher in a crawling position, facing her. "He's_still_ not sleepy?!"

"Nope," House muttered. He moved sideways to catch Christopher before the baby rolled sideways off the end of the bed. Christopher laughed when his father raised him up in the air and scowled into his cherub face. When the scowling failed to silence the baby's laughter, House stuck his tongue out at Christopher, which made the baby laugh even louder.

Cameron smiled.

* * *

_ Who wants an epilogue?_


	17. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I do not own House, MD.

A/N: It is the end. It's been a pleasure being challenged, though I wish the epilogue didn't have to take _this_ _long_. Includes my version on how Season 3 would have ended and how Season 4 would have been.

* * *

Wide, cerulean eyes fringed with auburn focused on the long, thin object on the floor. The toddler blinked and looked at the sleeping giant snoring softly on the couch. He turned his attention back to the long thing on the floor. Seeming to make up his mind, Christopher abandoned his Corn-Popper push toy and waddled towards the long object.

Christopher plopped down next to the interesting object, near the part where it curved. He picked it up and leaned forward to take a bite...

"Not again, short-man," House muttered crossly. Christopher paused to look up at his father when he spoke. House received his son's attention for a second before the toddler focused again on cane's handle. House snorted and took the cane, pulling on it just enough to prevent his still-teething son from bringing it near enough to gnaw on it. It took a moment for the toddler to change tactics, leaning forward to achieve his innocent purpose. House rolled his eyes and pulled up the cane. Christopher grinned; he held on the cane so tightly, he followed the cane's upward progress until he was completely standing. His father rolled his eyes before he leaned forward to encircle a free arm around his son's waist, twisting himself into a sitting position.

After successfully prying his brand-new cane from his son's eager clutches, House lifted his son by the armpits and raised him up, then down, testing his weight.

Twenty-month old Christopher started walking two months ago, to his parents' great delight (and relief).

--

_He surprised everybody at eight months when he gave up rolling around to regular crawling, and House was there to witness it when he set the baby loose inside Wilson's office during lunch. Wilson wasn't pleased when he walked in minutes later and found that the baby's father had placed all his knick-knacks on the floor for the baby to play with, including an expensive pen-holder Cuddy gave him on their six-month anniversary._

_"You have a CONFERENCE ROOM, House!" Wilson grumbled as he gently wrestled the penholder from his happy godson's clutches. "It's bigger than my office! Why didn't you set Christopher there?!"_

_"Be-CAUSE your carpet is softer and mine has blood on it," House replied serenely. "Plus, you have all these cool toys for Nemo to play with!"_

_"You refused to have Cuddy change your carpet, which has YOUR blood on it, and you HAVE toys!" Wilson growled, succeeding in getting his penholder back, which made Christopher cry. In the end, Wilson had to sacrifice a lab coat-wearing Dr. Teddy Bear (a gift from one of the nurses the previous Christmas) to make Christopher stop crying._

--

House placed Christopher next to him. He took an orange pill bottle from his pants pocket, faced away from his son, and took two white pills. He popped them into his mouth and dry-swallowed before placing the bottle back into his pants.

Though House was cavalier about Cameron's concerns about his Vicodin-a-minute habit, in reality, he always made sure to turn away from his son's intent gaze when taking his pills. The day after Christopher started walking, House took an inventory and hid his stash of Vicodin pills in a special corner of the house.

"Dada, bwah!" said Christopher.

House felt his son's small, strong hands on his left shoulder as the precocious child tried to pull his father towards him. House pretended to give in while he pocketed his Vicodin bottle back into his pants pocket. He looked at his wristwatch and sniffed.

"Time to suit up, Nemo," House said, wrapping an arm around Christopher. After setting the little one on the floor, House picked up his cane and stood up. He held out his left hand for the toddler to take, then led him out of the living room. "Let's hope Mommy didn't use up all the hot water…"

--

_Three weeks before Christopher's first birthday, Cameron and Wilson sold the house they co-owned and split the proceeds between them. While Wilson handled the sale, Cameron and House took Christopher on a house-hunting trek. They settled on a large and handsome bungalow house with five rooms. They chose one for themselves, one for Christopher, one guest bedroom, one for an office, and the last one House reserved for his musical instruments. House almost selected the master bedroom as the music room, but he backed down when Cameron threatened to tell his mother._

_House huffed. "Well, I still say we need to soundproof this room."_

_Cameron raised an eyebrow at him. "Why?"_

_House looked at her and waggled both his eyebrows. "Do you really want to broadcast our hedonistic performance around this neighborhood? Especially on 'no-condom' ni—?"_

_Cameron suddenly smacked his arm with Dr. Teddy Bear; Christopher was too surprised at the sudden loss of his stuffed companion to cry._

_Wilson placed most of his things in storage and prepared to move in with Cuddy. He informed House while the two men whiled away some time inside the men's room. House surprised Wilson by sniggering._

"_You're either the bravest man I know," House said reverently as he zipped up his pants. "Or the stupidest. Personally, I think you're the stupidest serial husband I know of. The Discovery Channel should make a project out of your life."_

_Wilson just grinned as House hobbled away towards the sink and continued with his litany: "She lives in a purple house with mold growing around the pipes and a makeshift dungeon in her basement. The moment you step foot in there, she'll be waiting for you in her leather dominatrix Dean-of-Medicine costume and a leather spike collar with your name on it."_

"_While she's six months pregnant?" Wilson asked wryly when he stepped next to House's sink and washed his hands._

_This reminder made House look up from his hand-drying, seeming to reconsider. "Okay, make that a leather dominatrix maternity dress for Deans of Medicine. And a purple latex diaper _with your name on it_."_

_Wilson looked thoughtful when he finished washing his hands and shaking them under the dryer._

"_A kinky love dungeon in the basement, huh?" he told House, who started nodding in mock earnest. "Interesting—I'll suggest it to Lisa when we get back from the honeymoon next week."_

_Wilson smiled broadly as he left a slack-jawed, boggle-eyed House inside the restroom._

--

Inside Christopher's room, House found that Cameron had left out a set of clothes on the changing table next to the crib. After inspecting the blue and yellow striped shirt and tiny black pants, House sighed.

"Mommy didn't get the memo," he wryly told his son, who didn't look up while he inspected the orange and red flames detailing at the base of his dad's cane. "See, even you can't bear to look at it."

House let Christopher play with his cane while he picked up the offending clothes and turned to a large, navy blue chest on the other side of the changing table. He bent down to open the chest, dumped the rejected clothes in it and picked out a small white shirt with intricate black detailing and short sleeves and a pair of toddler-sized blue jeans.

"Thanks for holding on to my cane," House said, taking the object itself from Christopher's hands. He hooked the cane on a corner of the changing table, picked up Christopher and set him standing on the chair. He deftly removed the simple blue shirt and red shorts off the toddler, replaced his Easy-ups diaper with a fresh one (thankfully, there wasn't anything solid), and dressed him in the newly approved clothes. The entire process was hampered by House balancing himself on one leg as he tried to keep Christopher from bouncing himself off the table and on the floor.

"Hey, you dressed him up!" Cameron exclaimed happily from the doorway. House grinned as he stepped sideways—hands still on Christopher's sides—and presented the result of his hard work to his live-in partner.

Cameron closed her eyes and an expression of pain briefly passed on her pale face.

"What's wrong with the clothes I brought out?" Cameron asked, stepping forward to take Christopher into her arms. Christopher squirmed around in his mother's arms until House handed him Dr. Teddy Bear in a scrub suit.

House rolled his eyes at Cameron, as though she had failed to figure something out. "You're making him dress up like a nerd. All the cool Jewish kids will laugh at him if he showed up in those nerdy duds you picked out for him."

Cameron snorted. "And you're turning him into a mini-me—er—you," she grumbled. She looked at her gold wristwatch and declared, "You better get ready. We don't want to be late."

As Cameron walked out of Christopher's room, she finally let go of a grin as House asked loudly, "How is looking like me a bad thing?"

--

_Thirty-five minutes later…_

House and Wilson had decided to retreat to the safety of the sofa, where they occupied both ends of it. Christopher sat on Wilson's left while he bit into a giant multicolored lollipop that was half the size of his head. On House's right was an infant seat occupied by an adorable, curly-haired baby wearing a blue and white stretchy suit and sucking placidly on a white pacifier. Little Gabriel bore a strong resemblance to Wilson, but he inherited his mother's heavy-lidded, light blue eyes and (according to House) her nose.

House dangled a set of big, plastic keys over Gabriel's head, not seeming to care or notice if the baby was attracted to the colorful, noisy toy.

"How did I get dragged into this?" House muttered.

Despite the noise level inside the living room, Wilson had no trouble hearing House. "Because you _owe_ Lisa after she fibbed in court during that Tritter episode, and that was while she was having _contractions_. You should be surprised she invited you _at all_."

House rolled his eyes.

--

_House got into trouble with a hard-assed cop when he stuck a thermometer up the man's rectum and left him bent over the exam table inside a Clinic room. Detective Michael Tritter caused trouble and a lot of stress for everyone at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital and the debacle went to court. Tritter's goal was to make House lose his medical license on the grounds of carelessness and House's dependency on Vicodin made Tritter's job easier…_

_House almost lost his job, what few friends he has, the loyalty of his underlings, and his family to Tritter's bizarre sense of justice and lack of understanding of House's pain. In the end, House even admitted to himself that he was at fault, though true to his own stubborn nature he never admitted it to anyone. He only told Christopher when Cameron wasn't around, but that was only because Christopher was still a baby._

_He would also never admit to Cuddy how grateful he was when she stepped up and testified in his defense, even though it was a pack of lies. What Wilson had failed to add was that House got himself pardoned when he suddenly stood up and went to Cuddy just as she couldn't take the pain any longer. After he accompanied Cuddy to PPTH and returned to court, the hearing resumed and the jury pardoned him, though the judge sent House to jail for one night because he disrupted the proceedings._

_It was Cameron, when she visited him in his cell that night, who informed him that Cuddy was delivered of a healthy baby boy._

--

"I remember now," House said, then he swallowed the rest of his beer and gave the empty can to Wilson. "She forced my hand while we were in the ambulance."

Wilson grinned. "She_crushed_ your hand all the way to the hospital."

House winced and whined, "She tried to turn me into a cripple." He leaned over Gabriel and said, "You and your bad timing."

Gabriel just gurgled and drooled.

Wilson just snorted, handed Christopher to his father and left to dispose of the empty cans.

House carefully moved Gabriel's seat away from him a bit, then settled Christopher in the newly made space. He snorted and looked around. The large living room was crowded, composed mostly of Cuddy's and Wilson's immediate relatives (parents, siblings and their offspring) and a few friends from PPTH.

The Wilsons had even invited Chase and Foreman. The two men no longer worked with House now that they have finished their residency with him. Chase decided to work in the ER of PPTH and Foreman was leading his own team of diagnosticians at another hospital. Cameron would have moved on to a key position in the Immunology Department, but Cuddy convinced her to stay and keep an eye on House.

"God knows what he'll do to these guys," Cuddy had muttered. She was referring to the three new residents House had recruited, American Idol-style. As with the last group, the newbies were composed of one woman (whom House had called "Thirteen"; she didn't even bother to change it and now the number stuck) and two men (Doctors Kutner and Taub). They were left at the teaching hospital to "watch out for fresh and interesting patients", as House ordered them.

Wilson returned to his side of the sofa. "So—when are you going to make an honest woman out of Cameron?"

House snorted. "Not yet. Haven't ..."

House was cut off by a shrill wail that seemed to have originated from House's side and resonated throughout the house. All activity and noise stopped as everyone turned or stretched to look at the source of the distress. Just as soon as the wailing had started, it abruptly ceased.

House and Wilson looked down. Christopher looked up at his father while sucking on a white pacifier. Gabriel was oblivious to the shock he caused as he stuck out his tongue and licked on the partially eaten lollipop Christopher had handed over.

The two men looked at each other with identical, strange expressions on their faces just as Cameron and Cuddy had stopped at the sofa. The women took one look at the scene and started giggling furiously. House just grinned and grinned at his son. Wilson chortled as he extracted a thin digital camera from his pocket, which he handed to Cuddy.

"We'll need some kind of proof when they're older," he explained.

--

Back at their house, Cameron had finished preparing Christopher for bed. House headed to his music room and left the door open, letting out some beautiful piano music.

After lulling the toddler to sleep, Cameron headed for the master bedroom and turned towards the bathroom/walk-in closet. She opened her side of the closet, opened the drawer that contained her underwear, and looked down in shock.

_Someone_ had used her pink bra and panty ensemble with the black lace trim to make a nest. In the middle was a small, dark blue, velvet-covered box. Cameron's eyes began swimming in tears as she picked up the box with shaky hands and opened it to reveal a beautiful diamond engagement ring. Looking closely at the top half of the opened box, Cameron noticed a tiny piece of blue paper with a bit of writing on it. She held it close to her eyes and read it aloud,

"Let's make it three and legal. Greg"

FIN


End file.
